Prime Minister supports Municipality’s full authority to force contractors to comply with by-laws

City Hall, Georgetown | Prime Minister Brig (r’td) Mark Phillips in his engagement with the Municipality indicated that the City must use whatever authority it has to force contractors and agencies to comply with the city by-laws. 

These remarks were made following the briefing received from His Worship the Mayor and Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore who bemoaned the construction of drains and revetment work without consultation with the City Engineer’s department. 

Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore stated that the officers of the Council are placed in a predicament when the Council makes its decisions, but they are called directly by state officials to act counter to those decisions. This is made worse by the Local Government Commission which has failed to act on the decisions of the Council to discipline officers.

Mayor Ubraj Narine highlighted the work on Vlissingen Road next to the Guyana Defence Force Base, an area that has technical challenges due to the pump station being located nearby. He stated that the drains being constructed are narrower than what existed, and no consultation was done with the Council on the construction. 

His Worship also highlighted the work being done on Camp Street in front of GRA which has already shown signs of compromising the surrounding drains.   

The Mayor stated that the Council is not anti-development but promotes collaboration to ensure all stakeholders are involved to avoid unnecessary inconveniences to the citizens of Georgetown. 

It was only recently that the Central Housing and Planning Authority indicated that it depends on the City Engineer’s department to approve plans before making its decisions and encouraged the department to ensure that all plans satisfy the Municipal requirements before forwarding them to the CHPA.