Latest update March 29th, 2025 5:38 AM
City Council renews call for municipal court
…in light of garbage woes
The Mayor and City Councilors of Georgetown have renewed calls for a municipal court in the city if the council is to recover much needed revenues owed by defaulting rates and tax payers.
This is in light of the current garbage situation affecting the city due to the council being unable to pay the over $300 it owes its two main solid waste collectors-Puran Brothers Disposal Service and Cevons Waste Management.
They have both withdrawn their services from the city.
According to Town Clerk Royston King, “This immediately activated the emergency clause under the Act, which facilitates the use of other contractors to help the council clean the city and keep it clean.”
King said that solid waste management accounts for a substantial portion of the council’s expenditure and the council pays over $50M monthly to dispose of waste.
The council’s monthly average collection of rates is between $78M and 80M.
In a missive, King pointed out that the council is unable to pay its two main contractors for a number of reasons including neglect of some property owners to pay their property rates; lack of evaluation of properties in the city for over 20 years; inability of the council to introduce new revenue earning measures; changing demographics and attendant demands on city services; increases in the cost of commodities and goods used by the council to provide vital municipal service and unprecedented environmental and public health occurrences, facilitated by global warming and climate change.
“This is why the council has been calling for a municipal court to deal with all municipal matters, including non-payment of rates to the council, without let or hindrance.”
Town Clerk Royston King
City Council has since made it clear that it has not disengaged with its contractors.
King said, “In fact, we remain very grateful to Cevons Waste Management and Puran Brothers for the services that have rendered. They have been working overtime, even in the face of payment delays to ensure a clean and healthy city. The council continues to examine several ways by which it can settle its accounts with its solid waste management partners. The council’s Finance Committee has scheduled meetings with its contractors over the coming weeks.”
In the area of solid waste management, the Town Clerk disclosed, that the councils needs to focus on an integrated system which requires a significant injection of funds to produce and install appropriate infrastructure, review legislations and manage a comprehensive environmental public awareness and education campaign.
This, he said, will yield long term results than the current arrangement to collect and dispose of waste.
“This period facilitates space to allow the council to rethink, review, retool, re-equip and build capacity to provide services. It also allows the council the opportunity to test, measure and evaluate its competence in managing tons of waste produced by the city.”
However, King said that the council would rather focus on garnering monies to pay its contractors and appeals to businesses to pay their rates. He added that despite granting amnesty to tax defaulters, many of them still owe the council millions of dollars.
“It is very worrying when those, who owe the council large sums, in outstanding rates are the loudest among those who continue to criticize the council and dismiss its efforts to secure the integrity of the city. The council’s financial records would show that many in the private sector, who make strange statements on the functionality of the council, have not paid their rates as far back as 10 years. Yet attempts by the council to improve the condition of the city go unappreciated by some of those very defaulters.”
Nevertheless, King reiterated that the council is committed to protecting the environmental and public health and well being of all communities within Georgetown.
He recalled that on 2015, City Council reversed the negative environmental and public health trends in the city. “They (citizens) would recall that there were piles of rotting garbage in every section of the city. It was unbearable for law abiding and decent Guyanese. The Mayor and City Council reached out to all neighbourhoods using a community approach and cleaned very ward within Georgetown. More than 6,000 local residents were employed by the council to clean their communities and got paid for it.”
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