Was a mistake made in hiring this man?
Oct 31, 2016, , http://www.kaieteurnewsonline....-in-hiring-this-man/
Dear Editor;
I refer to Royston King’s letter, captioned, ‘I don’t normally respond to the utterances of this gentleman’, of October 24, 2016.
The Town Clerk wrote that I “demonstrate a woeful lack of knowledge of municipal systems, the duties and responsibilities of the Town Clerk and other Statutory Officers and the general and specific operations of the Georgetown Municipality”. Yet it is the learned Town Clerk who has publicly demonstrated with a series of missteps and bad judgment in his management of the municipality.
Firstly, the removal of vendors from the Stabroek Market environs in May 2016 was so poorly thought out that the Council’s Marketing and Public Health Committee is still cleaning up that mess created by the Town Clerk. While no one disputes that the Stabroek Market environs needed reorganization, absent is a clear plan, the urgency and manner of the vendors’ removal was unnecessary.
It took the intervention of Minister of Social Protection and the Minister of Communities to stabilize the crisis created, pleading for City Hall to be “sensitive” to the plight of the vendors, so harsh was the heavy hand of the Town Clerk.
When President David Granger made his historic visit to City Hall on 27 June 2016 he stated that our vendors must be housed under a roof, and went on to lay out a vision for urban renewal. In his presentation he stated, “The Council needs to plan its actions over the next 30 months until December 2018 when municipal elections will be held again. Urban renewal cannot proceed by mere good intentions. Urban renewal must be guided by a plan”. This clarion call “to plan” is yet to be heeded; we continue to manage the municipality from one controversy to the next.
It’s our learned Town Clerk who stated in his missive that I “demonstrate a woeful lack of knowledge….” The Metered Parking System for Georgetown was championed and negotiated by our learned Town Clerk.
It is perhaps one of the most poorly thought out proposals that is now colossally binding on the municipality. President David Granger characterized its original cost to consumers as “burdensome”, the Ministry of Finance deemed parts of the contract with regards to taxation as “ignorant”, and the Attorney General’s Chambers described other aspects of said contract as “onerous” on citizens. These charges fall on the shoulder of our Town Clerk.
Then we come to the implementation of the ‘Container Fee’, again a poorly conceptualized and implemented mechanism the aim of which is still to be realized. Magistrate Annette Singh requested of the city to withdraw the matter from before the court where several businesses were being prosecuted. The weight of the defence which was successfully argued was that City Hall’s application of the fee was “arbitrary and unlawful.”
Editor, remember it is our learned Town Clerk’s characterization that I, “demonstrate a woeful lack of knowledge….” Yet with monies owed to workers, companies and individuals scarcely a day goes by when the M&CC isn’t approached for the payments of monies owed to companies and individuals for services provided to the Municipality. Some businesses and individuals have been waiting for over a year for payments.
Additionally, this month AGAIN Council workers are being paid late. This is now a pattern of delinquency, as we consistently break our contractual agreement with those who carry the greatest burden for the municipality. Also contracts are given to a select few, hardly ever engaging any tender and procurement procedures.
Again, on the issue of money management the learned Town Clerk leaves much to be desired as recently in a single project, the Georgetown Restoration Programme, the scores of instances where the Auditor General flags “no evidence of payment vouchers being certified” or other instances where “approval of the City Treasurer was not seen”, or instances where “there was no evidence of the Finance Committee approving” for tens of millions of taxpayers’ dollars is staggering under our learned Town Clerk’s tenure.
On the issue of the movement of the vendors from Robb Street few would argue against the need to maintain sanitized environs. However, to displace scores of vendors without notice, indefinitely, and in such a high-handed manner begs the questions who really “demonstrate a woeful lack of knowledge…”?
It was our Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan writing to the Mayor on this very vexing issue who stated, “The decision by the Town Clerk to remove vendors from the Robb Street location without being so directed by the council was therefore outside of his authority.”
I could go on to describe the City Constabulary under the Town Clerk’s direction, the removal and return of the garbage contractor for portions of Georgetown, the epic failure of the Flea Market most evident of the loss of confidence of our vending entrepreneurs in the Town Clerk’s leadership, and other distinct issues, all of which calculate to a litany of woes for the municipality under the Town Clerk’s stewardship.
When the Town Clerk’s actions are viewed in a management/ leadership framework a pattern emerges of a need for supervision. That the Government has had to step into the affairs of the municipality at almost every turn tells of the nature and quality of the professional skill set offered by the Town Clerk.
Modern management thinkers like Peter Drucker would tell us that when an employer has to micromanage any employee in this manner; in the way the Government has to continuously step in to manage the Town Clerk, a hiring mistake has been made.
Sherod Avery Duncan, LLB, JP.
Deputy Mayor