New Hanover Municipal Corporation chairman ready to tackle disorder

Chairman-elect of the Hanover Municipal Corporation and second-time councillor Sheridan Samuels says that stringent measures will have to be put in place as soon as possible to enable the local authority to become self-sufficient.

Samuels said that enforcement would also have to be strengthened in order to maximise the collection of building fees as well as property taxes and steps taken to ensure that designated public transportation centres are fully utilised by wayward bus and taxi operators. He said that the performance of the municipal police, who are also responsible for traffic management, would also have to be assessed as citizens have continuously complained that they are ineffective.

"If you look at the transport sector, where we have the bus parks, we might have to review those areas and see how we can collect more out of it. We will have to start using the Hopewell Transport Centre, so we will have to talk to the police to ensure we have these taxis off the road and start going to the transport centre so we can do the collections there," Samuels, who is also an accountant, said.

"What is the sense we have the markings in the road and people just come and park and we can't collect from it? So it is either we are going to cut back on the municipal police or we ensure dem do dem work, and if dem don't do dem work, then dem have to go ... . We have to look at the structures - whether or not we have to cut employment - because we have to carefully look at it, you know, to ensure we don't have too much staff when we can minimise," he added.

The issue of illegal vending on sidewalks, which is obstructing pedestrians and contributing to traffic congestion in the town, if Samuels has his way, will soon become a thing of the past.

"We have to look at vending. We are not going to allow people to come and put up stalls on the sidewalks and do their vending and we collect nothing from it, and in the same breath cause the traffic to be congested on Willie DeLisser Boulevard. So we have to ensure that we put all these things in place because we have to be self-sufficient based on the whole structure of the council itself as a Municipal Corporation," he said.