| “It is crystal clear to me that this matter at City Hall is being used as a political football by the powers that be…The evidence is abundant,” said City Mayor Hamilton Green as he spoke of the delay in the submission of the highly anticipated report from the Commission of Inquiry.The Mayor’s comments came during a press conference he hosted at the municipality’s chambers yesterday.Commissioner of Inquiry, Keith Burrowes, at a press conference two days ago said that the report will be submitted to Minister Kellawan Lall, under whose purview the municipality falls, on Friday.But according to Mayor Green while he is of the belief that the Commissioner is an honourable man, it is clear that his (Burrowes) work is being compromised by a patent political agenda.And this agenda, the Mayor noted, is evident by the angle from which the matters concerning the inquiry have been highlighted in the Chronicle.“The fact that Mr Burrowes is Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Chronicle is not relevant to what I have to say because he has assured me, and I said that I have accepted that he is an honourable man, that his connection with the Chronicle is completely divorced from the editorial policy of that paper.”However,Cheap Arizona Cardinals Jerseys, Green asserted that it is yet clear to all, that the pro-government newspaper is in fact a “mouth piece” of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic. According to Green, “It is clear to me from the statement contained in the final paragraph when they commented on my press conference on the last occasion that the vulgarity is evident.”Green highlighted further, that on the single issue of suspected fraud at the municipality that the newspaper had found it convenient to make capital of it, obviously intended to denigrate and subtly slander the Mayor and City Councillors of Georgetown.“You would have noticed earlier the big banger headline ‘multi-million dollar fraud at City Hall’. No other media found it necessary to give it that high a profile. And then last week just when I was preparing to discuss the matter again the newspaper reported ‘Fraud at City Hall’, no new information, same story. And then today (yesterday), the Chronicle finds it appropriate to front page this issue ‘Burrowes unapologetic for delay’. The other media dealt with other issues…”The Mayor expressed disgust after reading a portion of an article published in the newspaper which suggested that he (Green) has been inspired by the dedicated and commitment of Burrowes and has finally begun to address the concerns of citizens of the capital city.“This is the height of inaccuracy and political play…That’s my feel. We have over the years tried to put systems in place to improve what we found when we came at City Hall in 1994: a fractured bureaucratic system, inappropriate regulations and senior officers who felt immune because they had the protection of the Ministry in some areas.”And this is still prevalent, according to Green, who revealed that it was quite recently that a report was made to the Commissioner about the obvious case of an attempted fraud but nothing was heard of the matter.The matter, he said, was being addressed by the municipality at the level of the Treasurer and Town Clerk when the aggrieved person who claimed that he or she had brought $3M in a bag to pay taxes, approached Burrowes.This move, according to the Mayor, had led to the impression that it was the Commission that discovered the matter and pursued it.“When I spoke with Mr Burrowes on a one-to-one I said, I think that the time was right for us to call in the police. He said he would call the police and I had no difficulty with that. But the Chronicle is pursuing a process which suggests that we have been dilatory and delinquent and I will not allow them to get away with this journalistic jumbieism…”According to Green, even after intense investigation at the municipal level he is concern that there is yet a wide spread matter that has consumed one year.He added that he had met the Commissioner on several occasions and had discussed several aspects of his (Commissioner) assignment at which point he (Green) expressed concern that at one point it seem to have some degree of elasticity.Commenting on a statement made by Burrowes, Green admitted, “I had said that justice delayed is justice denied. I would repeat that because that is a universal principle accepted in every democratic and even ancient society.“In fact, one of our problems in Guyana today is the inordinate delay in the dispensation and the dispensing of justice itself.”Nevertheless, he complimented Burrowes for the personal sacrifice and dedication to the inquiry despite what he considered an “inordinate delay even after the Auditor General would have cogitated and looked at specific areas that the municipality has a concern for.”According to Deputy Mayor Robert Williams, very concerns of the municipality saw the commencement of the inquiry through Minister Lall.He added that although the report is not yet submitted some of the recommendations that it contains are already being implemented by the municipality.Burrowes, in an invited comment, expressed concern about the suggestions that the Commission’s work has had political interferences. He asserted that nobody, political or otherwise, had sought to influence the Commission’s investigation, which was and still is being handled in a professional manner.He said that efforts to target the Chronicle for its reportage appear to be an attempt to take attention away from the actual problem at hand. He has no editorial involvement in the operation of the newspaper, he added.The Commissioner also sought to comment on the fact that attempts were made to take credit away from the Commission in terms of the discovery of suspected fraudulent acts at the municipality.But according to Burrowes “this fraud is a symptom of bigger problems. The public is not concerned about who picked it up but that something is being done.”And given the state of the operation of the municipality Burrowes noted that if he had his way he would recommend that the city entity be managed as a business entity, which would see officials being more accountable to the citizenry. |
