DEPUTY Mayor Robert Williams, currently performing the duties of City Mayor while Mayor Hamilton Green is in Seoul, briefed the media at a press conference yesterday at City Hall on several issues, primarily payment of emoluments to employees of the municipality and to garbage collection and disposal contractors.

The Deputy Mayor said that intensified efforts at garnering revenue have enabled the municipality to make payments to all its employees as at 18:00h h yesterday.

However, he is not sure that City Hall can honour its financial obligations to its waste disposal contractors today because he is contending that the municipality is operating from a 1998 tax base, and that overhead expenses and City Hall’s wages bill have increased considerably since then.

Deputy Mayor Williams said that expenditure of the $10M per month allocation from the Government is overseen by the Ministries of Public Works and Local Government, and a report is presented to the latter ministry upon the completion of each tranche of the work schedule, which is a collaborative effort between the two ministries and City Hall.

He spoke about the rehabilitated vendor’s mall on Water Street, which provides accommodation for 166 vendors.

Touching on the Burrowes Commission Report, which was lauded by Mayor Green as a comprehensive document, the Deputy Mayor said that the Report is a useful tool that points the way forward for the municipality, and that the M&CC is awaiting the Minister’s pronouncements on the Report before taking relevant actions based on the recommendations in the Report.

Managing-Director of the Puran Brothers’ waste disposal firm, Mr. Lakenauth Puran, is highly dissatisfied with the way the municipality is doling out payments to the firm. He says that after striking for days they only received part-payment for May. Since then the bill approximates $19 million, with the firm still awaiting payments for cleaning up the city after the Mashramani and Easter celebrations, as well as payments for the months following the part payment in May.

He said that several promises of payment, including one for Friday last, were not honoured, thus they were forced to discontinue their services, because they would not be able to honour their own financial commitments.

The Manager of Cevon’s Waste Management, Alicia Edghill, said that the Council’s indebtedness to them is an approximate $22 million. She also said that her company cannot offer its services if there is no forthcoming payment and that although they had agreed to stave off the strike, which was scheduled for last Monday, on the basis of a promise of payment by the M&CC, she was forced to discontinue the services because again this promise was not kept.

In a release, the council has stated its regret for not being able to honour its financial commitments to contractors and staff, but cited defaulting rate-payers as the primary reason for this.

The release stated that, at its last statutory meeting, held last Monday, the council had decided on emergency measures to acquire enough income to pay its employees.

The release outlined several revenue-generating measures, as well as the intention to guard its resources with more care.