Ministry to work closely with City Hall to ensure money is spent to deliver services
A multi-stakeholder meeting was convened yesterday at the Ministry of Local Government to facilitate arrangements for the spending of the additional subvention of $135M that Government has made available to the Mayor and City Council. Minister of Local Government, Norman Whittaker; Minister of Transport and Hydraulics, Robeson Benn; Deputy Mayor, Robert Williams and other City Hall officials were engaged in discussions and took the opportunity to highlight also a clear picture of how the monies will be spent.
Minister Whittaker noted that his ministry will work closely with City Hall to ensure that all funds received, whether from taxpayers or through subventions, are spent for the purpose of delivering services to the people.
“Government has made available the subvention to the tune of $135M, and I think that, collectively, we would agree that we owe it to the taxpayers and to Local Government to have a clear understanding as to how this money will be utilised… we want to know about the disbursement of funds to the contractors who are owed, we want to leave here knowing that the two collectors who are owed are paid, the employees are paid, and pensioners who are owed are paid,” he stated.
In addition, he noted that there were discussions about the way forward and City Hall’s gradual “taking over” of some aspects of garbage collection, using the trucks and other machinery made available to them through the subvention and through support from Central Government.
He explained, “His Excellency President Jagdeo had also made available to them (City Hall) an additional $31M: $15M to be used on the Le Repentir[Cemetery] and $16M for enhancement around the city, we expect them to come up with proposals.”
The minister highlighted that the overall intention is for the citizenry of Georgetown to feel a little better, since the environment in which they live and work will be enhanced.
As to the progress of measures to alleviate current garbage woes in the city, Whittaker said, “We want the Guyanese public to know that the formal arrangements and the paperwork for the transferring of funds have already been effected, and therefore we expect that the action required of the City Council to address the issue of outstanding payments and to accelerate the pace and collection of garbage collection and disposal will take place almost immediately.”
With the acquisition of the additional compactor trucks it is expected that the 10 wards of Georgetown will be divided between the City Council and the contractors in terms of the collection of garbage, Whittaker added.
City Hall’s Deputy Mayor, Robert Williams, expressed gratitude to the government and to President Jagdeo for the financial support.
He said, “At the moment we are extremely grateful, particularly for the input for workers to benefit from their salaries, and also the garbage contractors to be able to continue their work. All in all, we are thankful for the input by the government in these areas of garbage collection and salaries for workers, so that we will be more focused in other areas.”
Williams noted that the City Council will now be in a better position to be more focused on other areas of revenue earning, as it has been targeting the collection of outstanding revenue for quite some time.
Alluding to City Hall’s intention to increase the areas in the city where garbage is collected, Town Clerk Yonnette Pluck emphasised that when City Hall made its budgetary preparations, it had planned to take over two of the routes in which collection is being done by the contractors.
“By the closure of today (yesterday), all employees would be paid and that would include pensioners. We have been informed that arrangements are in place to receive the monies; once we receive that we will be able to pay our garbage collectors…we will move into the phase of collecting garbage immediately and we will also be collecting garbage in four markets,” Pluck highlighted.

Garbage in the City
After the discussions yesterday, the Ministers of Local Government and Transport and Hydraulics, along with City Hall officials travelled through Georgetown and its environs to assess the situation and to get a first hand glimpse of the effects of the indiscriminate dumping of garbage.
Delays in payment by the Mayor and City Council (MC&C) recently forced garbage contractors to withdraw their services in protest, leaving a pile-up of garbage in sections of the city, posing several concerns for residents.
The areas visited included, sections of Campbellville, Kitty, Bourda Market and Stabroek, where festering piles of garbage were strewn.
Addressing concerns over the condition of these areas as well as how operations at the $4B Haags Bosch dumpsite contributes to this problem, Whittaker said, “There have been complaints by collectors that the down time at Haags Bosch is too long; it is not that; it is a behaviour; in some cases, I want to feel as though it is political; some people feel that they are hurting the government by doing this, and there are  business people who pay for the garbage to be removed and are not concerned where it is dumped.”
According to Whittaker, community members need to be more engaged if the problem is to be alleviated.
“We need to engage the people in the various wards, have meetings with them; I’m sure a significant percentage of the population does not want this, they want their neighbourhoods clean so that they can breathe clean air,” he asserted.

Government grant
President Bharrat Jagdeo, on Wednesday, offered a financial bail-out to the Georgetown City Council, to relieve the Council of its ongoing financial woes, and to enable the municipality to meet outstanding liabilities, including wages owed to staff and amounts due to garbage collectors for several months.
In addition, Jagdeo  announced that the government will be paying $80M in rates and taxes to the Council immediately; this payment will bring government’s rate payments up to date to the end of the third quarter this year.
Government will also be injecting a further $120M into the municipality to help meet its outstanding liabilities and to accelerate its efforts to keep the city clean.
A further $15M will be provided by central government to the City Council for cleaning up Le Repentir Cemetery; these payments will see government injecting a total of $215M into the city with immediate effect.
Furthermore, the president also indicated that central government is currently spending in excess of $450M to rehabilitate various roads and streets in the city.