– welcomes Parking Meter initiative
By Ramona Luthi
Minister of Communities, Ronald Bulkan earlier today during a senior staff conference stated that the Local Government system under the previous administration was “badly damaged and degraded to the extent that it was largely dysfunctional.”
As such, he gave proud reference to the way in which the present Mayor and City Council is being managed, pointing out the Parking Meter initiative as one of those independent moves while noting that he is confident that in time, persons will see the benefits.
“…only the passing of time would demonstrate the usefulness…the benefits of this imitative that will shortly be rolled out by city council,” he said.
According to Bulkan, under the previous administration, everything with regard to Local Government was being controlled by Central Government highlighting that the Former Mayor had on many occasions stated that “his hands were tied” and the council was not allowed exercise their “statutory lawful authority to manage and develop the Local Government Area that they had responsibility for.”
The Minister boasted that this is certainly not the case with the present administration, asserting that incumbent Mayor and Acting Chairman of the Guyana Water Incorporation (GWI) can vouch for this claim.
He noted that since coming into power, the APNU-AFC administration has been working to “repair and rehabilitate a broken local government system that we have inherited,” noting that this is an ongoing principal task.
“I venture to say though, that the single most important change that has happened which is a philosophy of Central Government and the strategic direction that this administration is committed to, is respecting the legal authority of Local Government organs and allowing them to function with the independence they enjoy under the constitution,” Bulkan asserted while noting that this present Local Government was built under a “different framework than those before.”
The seemingly proud Minister of Communities went on to state that proper control of the Local Government system “has been a foreign language to too many of us for too long… for too long in our country’s history, this system was not allowed to function.”
As such, he emphasized that in accordance with the “Green Economy,” changes will have to take effect in order to provide an “institutional strengthening and capacity building” within the Local Government.
NEXT STEP
Meanwhile, the minister announced that in the process of rectifying the Local Government System, and in accordance to producing initiatives that will benefit Guyanese, the next step would be to take a look at the architecture of Georgetown.
“I venture to say as well that the next step, one of the priority actions of the council will be to bring back order in relation to the buildings in our city and the architecture of our city, which unfortunately has suffered from considerate degree of deregulation. I hold the view that the new initiative will have many benefits.”
