‘A travesty’ – PPP councillor flags concerns about City’s 2024 budget

The Mayor and City Council’s 2024 budget should be presented on Wednesday but there are mounting concerns about the spending plan for Georgetown and funds spent in the years before.

Alfonso De Armas, a People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) councillor, is among those raising serious concerns about the management of the city’s finances.

“The biggest concern we have is that we don’t know what’s going on.

“Council is supposed to provide an account of how the money was managed last year by March 31 but nothing has been seen,” De Armas told the News Room on Monday, when the budget was initially slated to be presented.

Furthermore, he opined that the budget would not “capture the vision of the City Council” since consultations with residents in each of the constituencies were not done. According to him, the City’s budget should also take into account the specific needs of each constituency be it drainage works or improved garbage collection services.

“I think it is a travesty,” De Armas lamented.

This isn’t the first instance concerns have been raised by PPP/C councillors.

Last year, soon after his election, PPP/ C Councillor Don Singh highlighted that the City Council was cash-strapped and needed an urgent injection of finances to run the city for the rest of the year. He, however, pointed out that there has been no audit of City Hall finances in over a decade. As such, there are no records of how monies were spent over the years.

Singh is the sole PPP/C Councillor on the Council’s Finance Committee. That Committee is chaired by Lelon Saul of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU). Other members include Tahirih Adams, Troy Garraway, Clayton Hinds and Yvonne Ferguson – all of the APNU.

De Armas emphasised that a budget, statutorily, is needed to run the affairs of the City. But the question he asks is whether the budget to be presented will be responsive to the needs of Georgetown residents.

“The City needs a budget but as to whether the figures in that budget reflect any sort of reality, no, I don’t think it will,” the councillor said.