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20% cannot wuk

Jun 27, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

There has been little attempt by the City Council to explain why in the parking meter deal it settled for a mere 20% of the revenues. This omission to justify the sum to be earned by the Council has led to all manner of non- publishable speculation.
Those who inked the deal owe it to the citizens of Guyana to explain just how they arrived at this figure. Otherwise, people will continue to do more than speculate: they will point accusatory fingers.
The 20% can be considered a giveaway, especially given the length of time for which the contract runs. It will cause people to say that it is a sweetheart deal, just like they said when the PNC gave GT&T a forty year monopoly on overseas calls.
GT&T has made their fortune. They can afford now to give up the monopoly because telephone calls within the next couple of years will be free. Telephone companies will be making their monies not from calls but from data and other services.
No one signs a forty year contract to do business these days. Technology changes so rapidly that it simply makes no sense to have such extended contracts.
Yet, the City Council has reportedly inked a deal for more than forty years. Do they really expect that within the next forty years people will be going to offices to work? That too is already changing. More and more people are adopting “flexible work” which is another way of saying that they are working from home
The 20% parking meter- deal should be reexamined. When the PPP first came to power it inked a controversial deal with the lotto company in which the government got 25% of the revenues. It is believed that the lotto company spends another 30% locally on advertising revenue and on social projects. They also employ persons and create employment for thousands who sell their products. The commissions, salaries and other spending is probably another20% of revenues. This would mean that around 75% of the revenues from the lotto are retained locally. And this deal was strongly criticized.
So how much of the parking meter fees will be retained locally. We know that 20% goes to Council. Perhaps another 15% goes to pay workers. This would mean that 65% would be held by those who own the meters. Is this a good deal or a bad deal?
These are of course estimates. No one knows for sure what will be spent locally and this is something that the contract should have insisted on. The Council should not have only been concerned with what it will receive. It should have considered how the country would benefit.
This week we received another shocker. We were told that parking meters can be established to as far north as Middle Street and as far south as Princess Street. These plans are going to make a money tree out of the parking meter project. And it will do so up to the next jubilee. It will be a burden for this you and me and for our children.
This is why the 20% figure needs to be raised to at least 50%. Now that would be a better deal but still does not warrant the imposition of parking fees on a country which is still the poorest in Caricom behind Haiti.

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