Council to work with PSC, Govt. to resolve fees for container trucks, other issues

Apr 11, 2019 News

The Georgetown Mayor and City Council is looking to resuscitate the tripartite agreement between the Private Sector Commission, (PSC) and the Government to resolve the issues surrounding the collection of container fees, and other issues.
Kaieteur News learnt that the PSC met with officials of City Hall, yesterday, as part of efforts to resuscitate the arrangement.
According to officials attached to City Hall, the threefold agreement will be used to address a number of important matters affecting the Council, Private Sector and the Government.
Among the issues set to be addressed are, the controversial parking meter deal, garbage collection in commercial areas and issues surrounding the collection of fees for containers traversing the city streets.
The council is optimistic that the arrangement will serve to help us iron out the issues surrounding the payment of container fees.
The council has been looking to tighten the system on containers fee for a number of years. Former Mayor Patricia Chase-Green had previously met with the committee in a bid to increase the rate of container fees.
The council was looking at $8,000 in fees for a 20-foot container and $10,000 for those that are 40 or 45-foot in length, the current amount being paid is a mere $5,000 for a container leaving the wharf.
The $5,000 was agreed to be paid in the interim before a decision could be taken by the tripartite committee, but approximately two years have gone by without any movement.
The former Mayor had complained that “the private sector is not interested in meeting with this council or moving it forward in any way; two years now and the issue cannot be resolved. We’ve only been writing and writing and writing.”
Chase- Green had also touched on the issue of huge fuel-laden bush trucks parked in front of people’s premises. According to her, the city council should no longer allow these bush trucks to pass Agricola and enter Georgetown because of the amount of damage they are causing to city streets.
“People have to understand that a penalty is a penalty; it’s nothing you can just pick up US$12 or US$50 and pay off. They (businesses) could put it (their containers) on the road for 10 days and pull out $25,000 out their pocket easy, because they have $50M worth in the container.”
City Hall had decided to implement a $25,000 container fee, but the proposal had attracted much flak from members of the business community and the PSC.

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