Mayor, Councillors bash Engineer, Solid Waste, Constab. Depts.

A statutory meeting at the Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) turned heated on Monday after the Engineer, Solid Waste and Constabulary Departments came in for heavy criticisms for not performing effectively and efficiently.

Mayor Ubraj Narine stopped short of saying the employees should be fired but noted that they should be sanctioned ‘severely’.

“We can appoint Councillors now to be Directors of Solid Waste and be Engineers and that is the way we should go forward, the Council should take up these responsibilities because we are not getting the outputs from the departments and this is ongoing,” the Mayor said.

As it relates to the Constabulary Department, the Mayor said the Council is still awaiting a plan for security in the city since January.

“It is a shameful something that where and how we are managing these outposts, what we are doing and I ask further that if they can present to us how many people they arrest for littering, we couldn’t come up with a clue,” the Mayor stated.

Mayor Narine highlighted that the Solid Waste Department also has $5M in tools that are not in use and the Council is also awaiting a plan from the Solid Waste Director acting, Floyd Rawlins on garbage management.

“We have been given $5M in tools and I want to know if the Engineer ready to uplift the weeder machine and if they are using those tools, we need to get these people sort out.”

At the meeting, it was announced by Councillor Eketa Edwards that the Engineer’s Department halted clean up works by the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA) at Bourda Market.

The department claimed that they were not aware that the works were being executed by the NDIA.

City Engineer (ag) Kenson Boston was asked to leave the meeting and return with a copy of a report about the works being carried out and give valid reasons for the cancellation.

“They called off the works because they would have informed the contractor that they were not informed. Mr Mayor I would like to report that the Engineer Department has a representative that should have been in contact with the staff so that they would have known of the work that has to be taken place,” Edwards said.

Meanwhile, the Mayor noted that the Councillors themselves must also pull their act together.

He said numerous committee meetings were called for the past weeks and because of poor attendance the meetings had to be rescheduled.