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City council explores new revenue streams -Mayor
Kaieteur News – The Georgetown city council is seeking to implement polices to garner revenue from several new areas. These policies include: market stall rentals, pile-driving operations, wash-bay facilities, occupational certificate requirement for businesses, and food handler certificates.
City mayor, Ubraj Narine
“Those are areas, other areas, we are currently working on to garner revenue from, so that we can be able to sustain ourselves, and these are strategies both administration and councilors have to work on” the mayor stated.This comment followed after the City Mayor, Ubraj Narine, in an interview with Kaieteur News, noted the deficit in the city council’s budget.
He expounded on the fact that revenue collection for the city is a decade old issue that needs to be fixed. The council’s annual budget is about $2.2 billion, whereas its revenue collection is around $700 to $800 million per year, which in the mayor’s opinion can’t even manage the city.
In this regard, the mayor made reference to the Valuation for Rating Purposes Act, Chapter 28:04 Subsection 5, which states, “subsequent valuation lists in respect of any such area shall be prepared by the Chief Valuation Officer and shall come into force on the 1st January in every fifth year after the year in which the list for the area has come into force pursuant to subsection.”
The mayor further acknowledged that the last time a revaluation of city revenues was conducted was in 1996 and has not been updated since. He pointed out that this is the responsibility of the Ministry of Local Government and Ministry of Finance. In his opinion, a reassessment is long overdue and it is an issue that continues to affect the council’s operations.
“ The revenue for a four-story and three story building is still $12,000 a year…$50,000 a year…some business places right on Regent Street are still paying $6,000 a year, so there is no reassessment or revaluation of these properties. The list needs to be upgraded, which by law it states [is] every five year” the mayor stressed.
The mayor stated that sometime this week the council plans to call a general pardon, which will have different percentages on the amount of interest owed to the council. However, he made it clear that it will not be a scenario where persons are pardoned 100 percent of their debts due to the council, but they will be required to pay some amount.
The new policies will be gazetted, then executed. A committee will also be formed to guide the required procedures, to ease the burden placed on residential, commercial, and industrial locations because of the pandemic. The mayor noted that for the years 2020 and 2021, the council has waived all interest due to COVID-19 pressures.
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