Georgetown businesses now require M&CC sanitation certificate

Jan 07, 2018 News

This year, the Mayor and City Council will be dropping the hammer on businesses around Georgetown. They are all now required to present a ‘sanitation certificate’.
Addressing this matter was Town Clerk, Royston King, at a recent Press Briefing which was held by the Council.
King said, “It is necessary to confirm that our Public Health, and our environmental health inspectors have visited and inspected their premises and that they are complying with public health standards and regulations, that they have adequate washrooms, for example, and other sanitary facilities. They must also have adequate and proper ventilation and that their businesses are in good repair.”
King said that this will be done at the cost of a “small administrative fee”.
Lumber yards, saw mills and all manufacturing places, including food and beverage businesses, must be inspected by the inspectors. They must also be registered with the Mayor and City Council.
This new initiative is in keeping with the Municipal and District Councils Act, Section 301. “Under the Act, all businesses operating in the City must be properly registered with the City Government, which is the City Council. We are working with our legal team to ensure that we have all the necessary things in place to encourage compliance,” he said.
Section 301 (G) of the Municipal and District Councils Act stipulates, “The Council has the authority to regulate the mode and place in which any trade or manufacture may be carried out within the City or the Town and to prescribe the conditions under which machinery…”
Further King stated, “Section 35 outlines the Council having the authority to prescribe fees and charges and to issue licences or permits which may be subject to conditions, in respect of the doing of anything which the Council is entitled to establish, maintain control or carry on and to remit any such fees or charges and to vary or revoke any such licence or permit.”
He continued, “At 36, it says to incur all expenditure necessary for the performance of its function, whether functions arising from this section or otherwise and for the doing of all things incidentally there to”.
The Town Clerk said, too, that he has begun discussions with several key agencies, the formation of alliances, to ensure that rates are paid to the Council before registration or re-registration occurs, by those agencies to operate in Georgetown.
Some of the agencies that have been written to by the Town Clerk include Guyana Water Inc (GWI), Guyana Power and Light (GPL), the Guyana Fire Service, Commercial Banks and even the Guyana Revenue Authority.

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