– As council struggles to find finance to run city

THE Mayor of Georgetown, Ubraj Narine, disclosed to reporters on Friday that the Giftland Mall in Turkeyen owes the city over $103M in rates and taxes. In fact, he pointed out that since the mall was opened in 2015, the owner never paid its rates and taxes, nor any interest.

This act he said, takes away the right of mall owner Roy Beepat to talk about integrity, decency and honesty.

“What I want to point out to the public is this lawlessness that business owners want to continue with. And I saw many posts and articles from Mr Beepat. What I want to say to him is when you speak, you must speak from a point of view where you’re clean. You cannot speak when you have dirt on yourself. All the sublets in malls in the city have to come to the council to get their licence [sic] to operate. Giftland Mall breached all of that,” Ubraj said.

Shedding light on Giftland’s acts of lawlessness, the mayor explained that when he took office he engaged Beepat, who said that he met with the former Town Clerk Royston King, and had agreed to honour his taxes, but had an issue with paying interest.
From that meeting, Ubraj said the council’s decision was to waive the interest from the date the council engaged Beepat; however, he would have had to start 2020 paying up the right rates.

Beepat subsequently sent the council a letter stating that he doesn’t want to pay any interest on his taxes.

“Giftland didn’t honour their taxes from since they opened. So that rate is over 103 million. We’re actually lenient with him because those food places and sublets they have there, they actually need a permit from the food section of the M&CC. They need various other inspections to operate in a mall; likewise any other part, of the city.

Everyone who owns a sublet in that mall, that individual has to come to get a permit to operate. And the only way they get to uplift that, is by the rates of that property cleared,” the mayor explained.
As such, Giftland Mall is in serious breach of policies. Narine said Beepat tried to justify his stance by claiming that he built the road.

“To my knowledge, infrastructure played a big role in developing that road, and the road is not really for Giftland Mall alone, it is for Demerara Estate to have access to the road, and every Guyanese, so they have to do something better than that,” he said.
Noting further, due to the Beepat’s resistance, the council is left with no alternative but to take him to court for all the millions owed.

In fact, the mayor said he has submitted multiple letters to the Private Sector Commission but they aren’t doing anything about the multiple businesses that are not honouring their taxes, including Giftland Mall.

“Since they have a very big voice on this elections, I hope they have something to say about this. The private sector should focus on how we can develop the city so that we can have a better relationship… I believe the private sector body has an issue and they need to sort that out for the betterment for the business people, and also for the betterment of the city. We can’t operate in the city without the private sector. They once said that they are the blood vein for the city and if the city is the heart, we have to function together. They need to step up more,” Narine said.

Mayor also cited a court matter with the Vieira Houston Estate who also owes the city. He said that they are in court because the figure that Vieira has and the figure the council has, are vastly different.

“But we have letters from CH&PA which were copied to me. Those letters were sent to residents in [the] Houston area, that letter gave us some proof of exactly what Houston area ought to use for underdevelopment. So I’d encourage Vieira Houston Estate to come forward, let us work still and see how we can solve those issues. But aside from that there are still many people who owe the council rates,” the mayor said.
On this note he confessed that the council is facing immense financial blows in the face of COVID-19.

“Our revenue base has dropped tremendously, actually 69 per cent when we compare 2019 to 2020. However, our expenditure for the month of January to date in garbage collection, to deal with the Solid Waste Department is close to 21 million. For 2019 we actually spent lesser[sic] than that, because due to COVID-19, the sanitisation of various open spaces and all the markets come under the control of M&CC; we have to utilise more detergents and chemicals and also the workers working around the clock to get those works finished…

In fact, [in]the treasury department the cashier usually raises two-three million dollars per day; currently we are raising two and 300,000. So that alone can tell you the big drop on the revenue scale. Also on the vendors and markets there are a lot of people that we waived the interest prior to COVID-19. We don’t want them to pay any interest at all in this period of time. No interest will accumulate for 2020,” Mayor Narine said.

He also disclosed that for January 2019 the council was able to raise $319,970,108 M, and in January 2020 – $168,488,885.

“And that is something we continuously see happening. We are looking to purchase an equipment for sanitising so it can reduce the time and reduce work on the Guyana Fire Service. The cost is $1.2M and the machine can also be used for fogging… And that is why we are pleading with the business sector who actually have outstanding rates for us, to come and pay up so we can do our sanitising and other things in the areas,” he lamented.
Additionally, the council is currently unable to pay its staff. Mayor said that it’s $120M a month in wages and salaries for the council.

In that regard, he said “I wrote the Ministry of Communities on several occasions outlining all of this, the only thing I received is a little over $500,000 when I had closed the markets to install sinks. And we keep writing. However, we did have a meeting with the PS who asked us to submit documents with the breakdown; we did all of that, to date, we did not hear back.

We look forward to hearing back from them. We are the capital city and we need the help from the government in this point of time. We cannot afford it because of the revenue base drop… But we are trying our best with limited resources to serve the people of the city. I will continue to fight and echo my voice for the people of Georgetown.”