Threatening to unleash his inner “beast”, Georgetown Mayor, Alfred Mentore, today vowed to resist any attempt by the Central Government to take control of the City of Georgetown, which has historically been under the municipal control of the People’s National Congress Reform.

Addressing the Council today, the Mayor signaled the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s “intention” to take control of the city following the next Local Government Elections.

“Every day on the airwaves, you keep hearing about persons who want to take the governance of this city – that will not happen. That will never happen in this city,” Mentore said.

From where he stands, the Mayor believes the PPP administration wants to seize control of the capital in the absence of Local Government Elections.

He said while the Government talks about “rescuing” the city, it is destroying the Local Government System in the country.

“You talking about rescue when you are the one who bruk-in up the process. You’re the one who is causing problems, creating significant damage, not giving you the resources that you are supposed to get but claiming you want to rescue. How are you going to rescue something that you killing? If you are creating the damage, creating the problems and then telling people that you are going to rescue. You want put us on life support, and then come like the knight in shining armor,” the Mayor said.

Mentore said while the Government accuses City Hall of failing to execute its mandate, it is the Government that continues to starve the city of much needed resources.

Citing an example, Mentore said while the Minister of Local Government, Priya Manickchand, has been delivering garbage trucks to other councils with much celebration and fanfare, the country’s largest municipality remains under-served.

“Garbage trucks are being taken all over the country but not one garbage truck has been given to the City of Georgetown. How petty is that? How lovely is that? It appears that only when or if the government of the day put their hands, or try to put their hand on the city, only then you would want to fund the city council. But you will not fund it because somebody else is running it or somebody else is leading it,” Mentore said.

He said while the Council receives an annual subvention of $50 million, the subvention comes with pre-conditions, explaining that the Government through the Local Government Ministry often attempts to dictate the programmes that must be executed by the municipality.

Mentore, however, said despite the lack of sufficient funding from the Government, City Hall has been carrying out its functions to the best of its ability, and in a transparent manner.

“We don’t have anything to hide. You know why? We don’t have the excesses like government, where they could push their hands in the cookie jar and take out money and spend willy-nilly without giving accountability to the citizens of this country. We don’t have the luxury like the Central Government have; we have to manage from a fiscal process where we don’t have that fiscal latitude like Central Government but you know what, we pay we bills, we pay our staff, we pay our contractors, we do a little bit here and there within the city. Had we had the kind of resources available to us, we would have been able to do wonders,” Mayor Mentore said.

The City Council has vowed to challenge the the reclassification of city streets as public roads.

Already, the Council has taken the Government to Court over the seizure of City Constabulary Training Complex on Water Street.

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