-City Hall unable to get its act together
MINISTER within the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Norman Whittaker, yesterday, expressed the PPP/C Administration’s concerns with regards to the huge build-up of garbage in and around the City and the evident “slumber” on the part of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) in dealing with the matter, which is a very important aspect of their responsibility to the citizens of the Georgetown municipality.
He explained that at the level of the ministry, government has tried time and time again to use its available resources to assist the City Council, which continues to collect rates and taxes.
Even though this municipality received a subvention of $20M, the highest amount among the six municipalities, Government has had to inject an additional sum of about $135M to bail out the Council last year, which is constantly drowning in debt.
This consideration, the minister pointed out, is not enjoyed by other municipalities, yet they manage.     
Moreover, the Council has not been able to “get its act together” to take control of the full $20M, which was allocated to enhance City Hall.
In an effort to ensure proper management of the funds, the Ministry has agreed to disburse it in tranches and has delegated Chief Engineer, Walter Willis to work with the City engineer to ensure that the work is properly executed.
Additionally, Mr. Keith Burrowes who heads the implementation committee at City Hall was charged with the responsibility of the financial/accountability aspects of the project. To date, only $5M has been disbursed.
“To say that you are not receiving all of your collectibles is not an acceptable excuse; you can’t say that your revenue base needs to be broadened when in fact you cannot manage the existing revenue base. You are not even collecting 50 percent of what you should be collecting which tells a story about your revenue collection department,” Minister Whittaker emphasised. 
The minister added that even the revenue that is collected is mismanaged as the necessary expenditure controls seem to be sorely lacking.
He said that, while the City Council tries to project to the public that the reason why they are not delivering is because of inadequacy of funding, and that the revenue base is too narrow, the fact remains that a significant amount of the revenue collected by the Council goes towards covering employment costs, including heavy overtime and the payment of incentives, which is done without the requisite permission or authority. 
“If they were able to control employment costs and have systems in place to ensure that we don’t have the high incidence of overtime; we would have had funds available to meet the costs of collection and disposal of garbage in the City,” Minister Whittaker said.
He disclosed that other municipalities have problems with revenue collection as well, noting that very few of them collect 70-80 percent. However, those municipalities he said, work well within their means and have their priorities set right and, as such, they are able to deliver a better quality of service to citizens.

New APNU Headquarter
The Minister lamented that City Hall appears to be the new APNU headquarter, where decisions of a political nature are discussed rather than those that speak to its legislative responsibilities.
He reiterated that, “the central point being purported by the Mayor and party for the revenue base to be expanded in a bid to generate more funds, does not hold any merit. It is your ability to activate your revenue collection body so that they are proactive…you don’t sit and wait for people to come to you, you reach out to the people and show them by virtue of your works, what City Council can do to improve the environment if people pay their rates and taxes…so that people will view the payment of rates in the same light as they view the payment of their electricity and water bills.”
The Minister added that City Hall officers who are in the position to determine and make decisions on expenditure are doing so in a way that suits them and to accommodate their friends and their political directives, while very little is done in the interest of the citizens.