By Svetlana Marshall

Minister of Local Government, Priya Manickchand, has vowed to move ahead with a comprehensive plan to “rescue” the capital city of Georgetown and restore it to its former glory with or without the support of the City Council.

Her statement followed a decision by City Mayor Alfred Mentore and APNU Councilors to boycott a meeting that Manickchand summoned today, one day after engaging the Mayor and some Councilors on the same issue of the city.

The meeting with the Mayor and City Council was called by the Minister to discuss the waste management crisis in the city. However, the plans for the meeting fell apart after the two sides started trading blame on social media.

The Mayor and APNU Councillors were a no show at today’s meeting, however, the Town Clerk, City Engineer, and the Solid Waste Director were present along with the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Councilors.

At the meeting, Minister Manickchand accused the Mayor of flip-flopping on issues agreed upon during ‘closed door’ meetings, adding that this is the third time that he has misrepresented positions taken.

Though expressing a willingness to work with the Council in the interest of the residents of the City, Minister Manickchand said she is prepared to advance Government’s plans to “rescue” the city in consultation with the people of the city.

“It is not going to work, not because I don’t want it to work, every effort from my end has been to make this work. But you have to have two parties to collaborate at least. So, I can’t collaborate with myself or central government can’t collaborate with itself but what Central Government can do and we intend to do is to consult, hear the citizens and the residents and users of Georgetown and determine how Central Government can help the City of Georgetown get rescued. How we could restore the city of Georgetown without people whose only jobs seem to be is to stand in the way of that,” Minister Manickchand said.

She said Government intends to roll out a comprehensive plan that will see the City being cleaned, and green spaces being restored. Part of that plan includes public awareness campaigns to address the issue of pollution head on.

Minister Manickchand said Central Government has been executing a number of projects in the city, from the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges at the level of the Ministry of Public Works to the desilting of drains at the level of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA).

“Any roads you see in the city of Georgetown that were built or maintained was done by the Ministry of Public Works not by the M&CC. Any drainage that you see that was desilted, the primary drains are done by NDIA – the primary drains are the large drains that lead out to pump stations and kokers, that desilting has been done and maintained by the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority, it has not been done by the City Council. Tertiary drains under your bridge, the smaller drains have been done by the Ministry of Public Works, and again, Central Government,” the Minister said.

Added to that, she said the Government has also undertaken a beautification project in the city, with the City Council now just expected to keep the city clean.

“M&CC is left with one role, one role to pick up garbage in the residential and commercial districts, that is there is role, and that is something that they have been unable to do. And that garbage causes all kinds of other problems. When the garbage goes into the drains, it then blocks all the drains. They have not shown us that they could manage even this, and so, serious action would have to be taken to the benefit of the citizens and residents of Georgetown,” Minister Manickchand said.

But Georgetown Mayor Alfred Mentore told News Source that at the conclusion of Sunday’s meeting, he was of the understanding that the issues related to waste disposal management in the City would be first discussed at the level of the Council, and a report would be subsequently submitted to the Local Government Minister with a number of proposals.

He said it was against that background that he opted not to attend the meeting today with the Minister, and instead convened an extra ordinary meeting of the council today to discuss the issue.

“I am not an executive Mayor of the City of Georgetown. Yes, I may have the support of a majority, which technically would allow me to deal with matters internally or in between council, and in doing so, I could also, write to her without having a meeting with the wider council. But, what I decided to do, since this matter is so sensitive, and it is one that has to be treated with, I chose to have a special statutory meeting at 3pm today so that we could have more of this issue fleshed out,” the Mayor told News Source.

The Mayor said he is of the opinion that contractors hired by the City, who are aligned or associated with the Government, may be deliberately slowing down the collection of waste to make the City Council look bad.

“We spend good money on employing these contractors. We spend a significant part of our budget, it is over $500 million between having a department of the city council that clears three constituencies and the other constituencies are cleared by these various contractors. We pay them to provide a service. We pay them to pick up the people garbage in the various constituencies at a specific date,” the Mayor said.

According to Mayor Mentore, while Puran Brothers Inc has been making timely collections, the other companies which Cevons Waste Management, Sand-Dip Disposal Services and Guyana Waste Solutions Inc. have been falling short on their contractual responsibility. He said if the situation persists, the Council will have to bring some contracts to an end.

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