| Aimed at developing a standard record for clients of the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown (M&CC), a database system was unveiled yesterday by Chairman of the municipal implementation committee, Keith Burrowes.At a simple forum to introduce the innovative scheme to senior municipal officers and city councillors, Burrowes emphasised the importance of a change in the current operation of the city entity.Yesterday’s move comes on the heels of the Commission of Inquiry which ended last year. According to Burrowes, it is a norm that at the end of such intense inquiries, the final results are established when the report is submitted.However, the situation at the municipality required that a different approach be taken in that the Commission had taken a decision to support the council in implementing some of the recommendations made by the Commission.“It is an extremely frustrating process but I don’t really believe we have a choice,” Burrowes asserted. According to him,Cheap Jerseys, one of the major issues that had surfaced in the report is information sharing.In fact, he noted, one of the problems that had arisen is perhaps the way in which the council is setup, in that the focus is on departments more rather than the service delivery area.Another factor that was uncovered is that there is not a standard client database.“As I said some time ago, we need to determine profiles for our clientele and we are actually working on finalising that now. It is important depending on the profile, because you can approach it slightly different in terms of your engagement with them.”Already it is a known fact that about 10 or 15 percent of the people who own properties probably live overseas, Burrowes speculated yesterday.And since there may not be ample information available to communicate with such clients, the need for the development of profiles is seen as an imperative, he added.“Once we develop the profile then we can move to plan B. What has happened since the report has been handed in is that we have made certain improvements.”However, this has not dissuaded some persons from judging the work of the Commission, including the rate of implementation, Burrowes lamented.“Some people believe that once you get the report out all the woes will disappear. Now that is not the case…”According to Burrowes, there have been questions as to why the municipality is yet in a bad state in terms of revenue. And there are many reasons for this state of affairs, he admitted, adding that the systems that are being implemented may not bear fruit immediately.At the moment, he revealed, the Committee has been engaged in major discussions with the Privatisation Unit. In previous times, the Unit was seen as an instrumental base from which to garner revenue when the municipality was in desperate financial straits.However, the problem with this mode of collaboration is that the monies that are allocated in the municipal system are not the same as that of the Unit.“Right now when we should have been sailing smoothly the problem we have is the lack of accurate information. We are cleaning that up now.”And once this process is completed it is expected that in the second half of this year the municipality should be able to get additional payment from the Privatisation Unit with less controversy.Another problematic issue is the accuracy of the information contained in the municipal database, a situation Burrowes admitted will take a considerable period before it is regularised. |
