– City Hall, private sector agree to jointly tackle garbage, rates issues

A meeting between the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) and the private sector on Wednesday ended on a high note as the parties agreed to work together to bring businesses in line regarding garbage collection and payment of rates and taxes.

In the coming week, stakeholders will take to the streets of Georgetown where businesses with bad garbage disposal habits will be reproached, while the Council awaits a list of rates and taxes defaulters to bring them into compliance.

The meeting, which saw a large attendance from representatives of the private sector, took place in the office of Georgetown Mayor, Ubraj Narine and in the presence of other members of the Council.

It came following a statement by the mayor indicating that over 140 business proprietors in Georgetown owe taxes and are causing a strain on the City Council to finance services such as garbage collection.

The mayor’s opening statement led the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce & Industry (GCCI) to request that all businesses in Georgetown not be ‘broad-brushed’ with the same label even as it extended an invitation for a meeting.

Coming out of the meeting, the private sector has agreed to work “in good faith” and “passionately” with the City Council to correct the current challenges.

“A lot of issues that the City is facing are sometimes because of a lack of collaboration and coordination with the private sector. The private sector came here today with a passion to cooperate and to work in collaboration with the City to make Georgetown better,” Private Sector Commission (PSC) Executive, Captain Gerry Gouveia said, coming out of the meeting.

He added: “A lot of businesses on Regent Street — and we’re going to identify them — in fact, next week, we’ve agreed to walk the City with the mayor and we will go and identify the businesses that are dumping their garbage in the alley ways and in front of their businesses and we’re going to embarrass them. We’re going to work with them; we’re going to ask them to stop doing it. We understand that there’s a hotel in the City that had garbage piled up in front [of it] and it’s unacceptable.”

The collaboration will also see the private sector and City Council addressing issues related to container fees, building codes and more.

BUILDING BRIDGES
Stating that the meeting was aimed at building bridges rather than walls, the mayor stated: “This meeting was very fruitful and next week we’re going to meet with the shipping association also to regulate the containers’ fee so that we can be able to get something crafted which we will be able to know the amount of containers and fees and all these things which, at the end of City Hall, we will receive per month.”

Regarding the taxes owed by businesses, Gouveia stated that Narine will first have to receive approval from the Council before handing over the list of defaulters to the private sector.

“We are waiting for that because when we get that list we will like to be able to call in the private sector. The private sector actually does have a Code of Conduct for our membership so before their membership is renewed; people have to bring their NIS certificate; their PAYE certificate and so on. We’re probably now going to move to the next level in that Code of Conduct to say ‘bring your rates and tax compliance’,” he said.

PSC Chairman Desmond Sears said last that, in 2018, President David Granger had requested that a committee involving the Ministries of Business and Communities, the PSC, the GCCI and the City Council, be set up, to facilitate purposeful collaboration.

“The idea was to work together so that we could, as a business community, look at the City in getting, for example, its fair share of rates and taxes and also other areas like property valuation. It didn’t go very well but what we did today was to try to resuscitate that,” Sears said.

MOVING FORWARD
He added that stakeholders involved will now be seeking to engage Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan, to better organise the way forward.

Both Gouveia and Sears agree that, with Guyana heading into a brighter economic future, more persons are travelling to the Capital City and it ought to be kept clean as a representation of Guyanese pride.

“Delinquent businesses must be called out. We talked about garbage collection; with people coming into the City, we want to look at tourism. We were told that there are some businesses that just throw their garbage at the back of the building and there’s a cost to pick up the garbage and to have a clean City. So if we’re thinking of going green the world is watching at us and it means, therefore, that we need to put things in place,” Sears said.
At the end of the meeting, two tractor tyres were handed over to the City Council by the PSC to enhance the service of the Council’s lone tractor which broke down last week.
Mayor Narine said while Wednesday’s meeting resulted in a verbal agreement, the private sector and the M&CC will continue deliberations on how they can best forge binding agreements in the future.