PNC/R says Jagdeo Administration destabilise the Georgetown City Council

   The main opposition PNC/R today says the Jagdeo Administration is intensifying its continuing programme to destabilise the Georgetown Mayor and City Council. The Administration has not disguised its ambition to replace the Georgetown Mayor and City Council with its own hand-picked Interim Committee, before Local Government Elections are held. It seems that they have become desperate and are resorting to any means available, to ensure that the Council is hobbled and unable to function effectively, in its legitimate efforts to deliver the services required by the citizens of Georgetown. The Party claims that the Administration deliberately prevented the Council from widening its Revenue Base while, at the same time, withholding the timely payment of Rates on Government Buildings, as a means of placing the council in the position where they are unable to meet their legitimate expenses. Having starved the Council of the revenue from the Rates which the Government should have been paying, as required by law, the Council, not unexpectedly, found itself unable to pay the Garbage-removal Contractors monies outstanding to them. Not surprisingly, the Garbage Contractors stopped their collections until the outstanding arrears were met. PNC/R chief Whip Lance Carbury said while the President and his Minister are engaged in this barefaced and illegal action, the Government had approximately G$100Mn in Rates outstanding to the City Council. In addition, the National Industrial Commercial and Investment Ltd. (NICIL), headed by the ubiquitous Mr Winston Brassington, has G$100Mn in Rates outstanding on State property for which it holds the titles. It also seems that there are some prominent business entities complicit in the withholding of Rates owed to the Georgetown Mayor and City Council. The Finance Committee of the Council has, by letter dated 13 August 2010, sought clarity from the Minister of Local Government under which regulation or by what authority the Order to pay contractors of the City Council directly from Taxes owed by the Government has been made. To date, the Minister has not responded. The PNCR again calls of the Jagdeo regime to place the welfare of the citizens of Georgetown above partisan politics.