City Hall prepared
Acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry
Acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry

– if garbage contractors strike during Christmas season, says acting town clerk

THE Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has said that while it is not ruling out a strike by garbage contractors for the Christmas season, the time of year when their services are most needed, emergency plans are in place in the event this materialises.
A few weeks ago, Solid Waste Management Director Walter Narine had told the public, via a news conference, that the two main garbage contractors – Puran Brothers Disposal Services and Cevons Waste Management Inc. – that a part payment was soon going to be made to them.

However, acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry on Friday told the Guyana Chronicle that no such payments could be made because at this point in time, finances are hard to come by. However, she offered that the contractors have acquiesced in allowing the M&CC some more time before payments are made.

“We have not made any payments but I’ve been in discussions with both of them and we have a temporary agreement, whereby they are awaiting payments. This period at council is a little tenuous with the CoI and everything else. Finances are very hard to come by right now, so it is agreed that they will facilitate us some time until we can actually make payments,” Harry stated.

She informed that the M&CC is expected to meet with the two contractors sometime this month.

Asked if the municipality is worried about strike action, Harry responded: “We have learnt here at council not to rule out anything. Discussions are not final agreements and even agreements are broken. I have learned that you must always plan for whatever eventuality, because there’s no such thing as can’t or wouldn’t.”
Harry said any manager would be concerned at this critical time of the year. “At the Christmas time is when they are most needed and the impact [of a strike] of course would be very consequential to residents; but it would be remiss of me not to have contingency plans in place just in the event something like this should happen.”

FRUSTRATED
Representatives of both companies said last month that they are frustrated by the M&CC’s inability 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 Archer.

“The non-payment is affecting our working capital, but we have not made a definitive decision as yet as to the way forward,” the 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 industrial action. “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.

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