— M&CC promises part payment soon

WHILE the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has not been paying its two main garbage contractors for the past five months, Director of Solid Waste Management, Walter Narine said based on a credit facility in the contracts, the money could only be deemed owed after the expiration of three months.

But according to manager at Puran Brothers Disposal Services, Kalesh Puran, more than three months have passed and he is yet to receive payment.
“I can’t go out there and say they owe for two months when in fact they owe since June,” Puran told the Guyana Chronicle on Saturday, adding, “We don’t want to wait six or seven months and then they will ask why we waited so long to say something.”

At a press briefing last Friday at City Hall, Narine referred to the figures the contractors supplied to the media earlier this month and sought to clarify the situation. “That may be true, but the binding contract specified that 90 days after the submission of invoices, that money becomes owed. The figures given by the contractors are not in keeping with what the contract specifies,” he offered.

For June and July, the M&CC is owing just over $60M, Narine said, noting that both contractors have been working with the City Council for decades now and they ought to be aware of what is stated in the contract. “This is nothing new,” he offered.
Furthermore, he said the contractors should also know that the Christmas period is very slow for the municipality. As such, Narine said he is pleading with the contractors for their understanding during the Christmas season.

He said the M&CC is committed to paying the contractors and plans on meeting with them early in the new week to pay some of the money that is outstanding.
Puran’s, along with Cevons Waste Management Services are once again faced with a financial dilemma because together, they are owed $148M. Approximately $75M is owed to Cevons and $73M to Puran’s.

FRUSTRATED

Representatives of both companies said earlier this month that they are frustrated by the inability of the M&CC to make timely payments to them.

“We are in negotiations with the city but we have not done anything concrete as yet; we are still trying to get something done,” said Business Development Officer of Cevons, Morris Archer in an invited comment.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cevons, Morse Archer, in a follow up to what was said by his colleague, noted that the company cannot continue to work without being paid and that at some point, they will have to stop.

“We are at a close breaking point… we had a meeting with the City Council and they promised to meet again to discuss payments but it is annoying and frustrating, it is a consistent cycle,” said Morse.

“The non-payment is affecting our working capital but we have not made a definitive decision as yet as to the way forward,” other contractor Puran had said.

Despite attempts to maintain the professionalism with the M&CC, the companies said they are frustrated and might even resort to striking. “We have not said that we will strike but we are contemplating it,” said Puran, explaining that in the past they had put faith and investment into the system, with the hope that the situation would improve.

The contractors had opted to pull their services in August 2017 when the City Council had racked up more than $400M in debt to the two companies.
Although the companies had agreed to wait for payments for the years 2015 and 2016, the municipality was not even keeping up with its current balances for 2017.

Government stepped in and paid the contractors all of the outstanding balances and even went further to create a special arrangement to cover services up to the end of that year.
During that time, the contractors had anticipated that the City Council would make some effort to contact them on a new system beginning 2018.