A renegotiated illegal contract is still an illegal contract
Dear Editor,
“Under the law, we can initiate parking meters in Georgetown, and we will. No matter how many people you bring to gather and make noise outside, that doesn’t change the position of Council. Council has a right and Council will carry out that right.” – Oscar Clarke, PNCR Councillor. This arrogant and distasteful statement sums up the contempt that the Mayor and City Councillors hold for the citizens of Georgetown who for months stood up for their right to reject this most corrupt and despicable contract with Smart City Solutions. From the utterances of Oscar Clarke who is one of the fantastic four that went on the all-expenses paid jaunt to Mexico at the behest of SCS, one would believe that only the M&CC has rights even if it means strangling the working class citizens of Georgetown.
It has already been established that the contract the M&CC signed with SCS has breached all the local procurement laws and Section 231 of the Municipal and District Councils Act Chapter 28:01 which clearly states that contracts in excess of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars must be advertised for public tendering. The Government of Guyana through its Ministry of Finance also acknowledged this breach in their June 23, 2016 review of the SCS contract when they stated inter alia that “government procurement procedures may have been violated, in that a tender was not advertised and bids reviewed for acceptance’” and recommended that the project be “re-tender[ed](assuming that it was done before…).”
Notwithstanding all of this, the M&CC seems proud that they have accomplished the impossible, which is to have successfully renegotiated an illegal contract. This is comedy at its best. How can an illegal contract be renegotiated? What’s more, this renegotiation was done by none other than the newly anointed deputy Mayor. One wonders, is the deputy Mayor qualified to renegotiate a multi-million dollar, forty year contract? Was legal representation present during the renegotiation? Were the feasibility and social impact studies, which are key prerequisites for contracts of this nature and magnitude produced for scrutiny? Who reviewed these studies? In the absence of these studies to determine the levels of fees and fines, one can only assume that the new rates were pulled out of a hat and the so called renegotiation is nothing but a sham.
The consequences of the parking meter project are far reaching. It will impact negatively on businesses and reduce the disposable income of the average worker who already faces severe economic conditions. Low disposable income means lower sales for businesses and lower VAT and other tax payments to GRA. Would poor sales be the final straw for businesses that are already struggling in an anaemic low growth economy to start laying off staff? It was recently announced that the economy only grew a meagre 2.1% in the first quarter of this year, well below the projected target. Do the Mayor and Councillors who voted for the resumption of the project truly understand the hardships that their actions are going to impose on the ordinary Guyanese who are trying to make a living?
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