City Hall pays salaries

Sep 04, 2009 News

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– But garbage contractors still on the waiting list

It warranted intensified revenue collection and a desperate attempt on the part of administration of the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown to prove that it is serious about putting its employees’ wellbeing first among its priorities.
Consequently, the municipality by the end of yesterday was able to garner sufficient funds to pay its 900-odd employees their August salary which has been overdue by over a week.
The official pay date for the municipality is by the 25th day of each month, but the city entity for the umpteenth month running has not been able to meet this financial obligation in a timely manner.
At a press conference yesterday Deputy Mayor Robert Williams, acting in the capacity of City Mayor, revealed that “by 18:00 hours this afternoon (yesterday) the emoluments for all workers attached to the municipality would be in their bank account.”
He related though that some employees were in receipt of part payment since Monday, a process which had commenced with the operational arm of the municipality including the Cleansing Department, the Engineers Department and the Cemetery workers.
As a result, he said that most of the administrative staff and the senior level of employees were the people who were reserved for the payment of their salaries last.
According to Williams, the municipality has for the year budgeted over $990M for the payment of emoluments for staff. However, as of July last, he related that a total of $576M in emoluments were paid to employees, an amount which would have risen yesterday to a whopping $646M with the $70M that was paid out as August salaries.
Williams pointed out though that the municipality is faced with the challenge of having to carry out certain obligatory roles with a tax base that has remained stagnant over the years.
“While there have been increases and requests for increases this year, these increases have to be met from a tax base which has not increased since 1998. The same amount of money property owners paid for their properties as part of their rates responsibilities are the same amount being paid now from which this amount (salaries) has to be extracted.”
He further emphasised that although the municipality is tasked with budgeting, that budget does not mean that “there is revenue in a bank sitting and waiting to be paid each month. It has to be garnered from those who are required to pay before you can pay same out to those whom we are required to pay.”
Williams revealed that the council has been able to make significant expenditure in the delivery of services to the workers and the citizens and to all those who are connected to proverbial municipal process.
GARBAGE CONTRACTORS
The municipality, according to Williams, is yet to pay $75M owed to the two contractors – Cevons Waste Management Inc and Puran Brothers Waste Disposal Service – that were retained by the city entity to provide waste disposal services.
According to Williams, garbage disposal is estimated at some $96M while garbage collection is in the vicinity of $123M, monies that have to be found in addition to the emoluments paid to workers that have to come from the same tax base.
Up to June 30 last, the municipality had expended more than $800M in its expenditure budget, the Acting Mayor disclosed.
As such the intensified efforts of the municipality had seen it engaging judicial action utilising measures such as distrait warrants to urge defaulting tax payers to pay up. Distrait warrants, Williams explained, are final letters sent to property owners with the warning that legal action will be taken should they fail to meet the payment within a specified period. Failure to pay he said, will see the matter being taken before a Magistrate’s Court.
“If they receive judgement then we can only remove removable properties that are owned by those property owners,” Williams noted. The municipality has also incorporated the Petty Debt Act which targets persons with vast amounts of money owing. These people, Williams said are taken to court and once judgement is acquired for the amount owing, removable property again can be seized by the marshals and sold so that the municipality could receive its money. And according to Williams, further action could yet be taken, such as the seizing of land or property, if the property sold does not meet requisite amount owed to the municipality.
But before engaging such measures, he related that the municipality has begun to list properties in the newspapers calling on property owners to visit the Treasury Department at City Hall in order to have a discussion about their indebtedness.
Williams said that with effect from Monday, the municipality will change its approach and commence publishing the names of defaulting property owners who have so far refused to visit City Hall to make necessary payment arrangements.
“We will publish the names that are in our database for which those properties are assigned and in addition to that we are going to be asking persons associated with those properties to visit City Hall in order to have a means of settlement to outstanding taxes due.”
However, once the municipality is able to accumulate the relevant sums there will be no hesitation to pay the contractors the monies owed to them, Williams noted even as he divulged that at least a percentage of the money owed should be made available today.
The contractors on Tuesday withdrew their services from the municipality because for the past three months the entity had neglected to honour their payment obligation. Yesterday several bins in the city could be seen overflowing.

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