‘Multi-dimensional destruction’

Attorney General Anil Nandlall was in full flow last week on his Facebook programme after disclosing that the company Smart City Solutions had sued for compensation. It had been awarded a contract by the City Council in 2016 to install parking meters in central Georgetown, but ultimately this was not implemented. Proceedings against the Government of Guyana had been filed through the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes located in Washington DC, the AG said.

This revelation gave him ample space to enlarge on the matter of the strain this would place on the nation’s finances, since the compensation sought was US$100 million, and attorneys would have to be retained in the United States to defend a contract entered into by the coalition. This was “the type of destruction that the APNU+AFC left in its wake,” he declared.

The coalition government has a lot to answer for but in the first instance it was the City Council which holds responsibility for this fiasco, since it was the body which signed the contract for the parking meters. A great deal of murk surrounds the first contract which was made public, and which initially involved National Parking Systems. This was then amended to include SCS after the principal of the first-named company was said by City Hall to have approached an international consortium for technical support. In the end, however, the public only ever heard about SCS.

The first thing to be said is that the whole scheme was not devised as part of a larger project to deal with Georgetown’s traffic chaos, but was intended as a means of raising money for the Council. The problem was that with rates of $125 for 15 minutes of parking that in itself caused an outcry, City Hall was still only going to receive about 20% of the takings. With VAT being applied, the government would have got more, but most of the money would have gone to SCS. Why, everyone wanted to know, was the City Council bringing in an extortionate foreign company, when it could have arranged parking meters itself?

While Mayor Chase-Green and Town Clerk Royston King, the main cheerleaders for the project, insisted that the city had legal representation at the time of the negotiations, they never identified the legal representative. When the contract was renegotiated some time later, they similarly did not identify the accounting firm which had advised them. There was, it seems, no evaluation of SCS by the M&CC before the company was chosen to undertake the contract, among other things. A subsequent review by a Chartered Accountant indicated that the firm had inflated their investment by as much as fifty per cent.

Most of all, of course, there was the accusation that the municipality never invited public tendering which transgressed its procurement regulations, although SCS disputed that. But the most unique aspect of the whole parking meter story is that it was halted effectively speaking by the action

of the public. The people who gathered outside City Hall at lunchtime every working day over an extended period, were not transported there by party buses, or tempted by free food; they came of their own free will, the majority of them having never been part of a protest before. Inevitably the then opposition tried to move in, but this action had nothing to do with them, although it is true that after a time many of the business people asked their staff to go out during their lunch hours.

The protests had no leaders, although in due course it spawned a movement, not surprisingly entitled The Movement Against Parking Meters, and it attracted some helpful lawyers. Since this was a situation which affected everyone of whatever political persuasion it was politically neutral. Perhaps largely for this reason it was effective, and this is where the government entered the story. It sent the contract for review to the Ministry of Finance and the AG’s Chambers, and while both slammed it, the latter did not deem it illegal, which was the government’s first egregious error. The AG’s office described the contract as “one of unequal bargaining strength” with terms overwhelmingly in favour of SCS, and highlighted a clause which was so punitive it was intended to place the city in terror of terminating same.

What the government did was to suspend the implementation of the contract for a period and recommend its renegotiation. Amendments were agreed between the two parties, and these included a reduction in the length of the contract from 49 years to 20 years, as well as a reduction in the parking tariff from “up to $125” per 15-minute period, to $50 per 15-minute interval, as well as lower rates for longterm parking. In September 2016 the City Council voted in favour of the amendments by a majority.

But then there was the matter of the by-laws which would cater for these new parking arrangements. These were received no better by the public than the two contracts had been, one legal critic noting that they were draconian and unconstitutional. “Any infraction can result in a fine of $150,000 and three months imprisonment. For a parking violation you can find yourself in prison for up to three months,” she said, going on to explain that if the bylaws were allowed to stand we would have a foreign company enforcing traffic laws in Guyana, a responsibility which should lie with the police.

Although the by-laws were approved by both the Minister and the City Council, they were struck

down subsequently by the Supreme Court for failing to follow the procedure required under the Municipal and District Councils Act for bringing them into force. As for the government, it said it would not act against the Council in implementing the project. Similarly, then State Minister Joseph Harmon said that the government would not act against the M&CC in respect of the by-laws it had passed; it was committed to allowing the City Council to govern unhindered. From the beginning the coalition government did not adopt a stance in the public interest towards the contract, more especially since that contract was both unreasonable and possibly even in its final form, illegal. It should not be surprised, therefore, that the AG has homed in on it when apportioning blame.

Mr Nandlall accused the former government of causing “multi-dimensional destruction” to the country’s economy and people’s welfare. “They don’t have anything to do with this. They just wash their hands off of it. Left this burden with us to carry,” he said, while they are “living their merry life.”

It can only be observed that “multi-dimensional destruction” is not confined to the previous government; this one has far worse to its account than a parking meter contract and associated by-laws. There is the Natural Resource Fund Act to begin with, which has some similar and some worse flaws than its predecessor, the gas to shore project, the Demerara Harbour Bridge for which no environmental assessment is being required, and a number of other things.

The difference in terms of the context is that the people stopped the parking meter contract, but there were no large numbers of totally non-political citizens out on the street in front of a relevant minister’s office or presidential secretariat every lunch hour to stop the Natural Resource Fund Act, for example – which is not to say they are not concerned. What the PPP/C government confronts are small civil society groups, and knowledgeable individuals whom they treat with their customary contumely. And then in the best tradition of the local politicians, they go their “merry way”.