THE Mayor and City Council (M&CC) said it wants $8,000 as container fees for 20-foot containers and $10,000 for those that are 40 or 45-foot.These new figures are part of a proposal being mulled by a tripartite committee to look into the matter.

The M&CC, Government, and Private Sector Commission (PSC) had agreed to get together to resolve the contentious container fees issue.

At the Council’s most recent statutory meeting this week, the M&CC said it is giving the tripartite committee some 30 days in order to come up with a fixed fee, failure of which would result in the M&CC moving forward on the issue on its own.

Mayor Patricia Chase-Green and other councillors agreed that the by-laws for the container fees should be deferred until January when sufficient time would have been given for the tripartite talks.

Councillor Alfred Mentore stood up to offer that the new amounts being requested by the M&CC are fair and reasonable.

Other Councillor Malcolm Ferreira voiced his disapproval of the current amount in place for those in breach of the obligation to move their containers within a stipulated time.

He urged the Council to increase the amount from $2,500, and noted that when a car is held with the new parking meter system, this is the same amount that would have to be paid. Therefore, he argued that it would be unfair for the owner of a car to be paying the same amount as the owner of a huge container.

“I believe that’s low. It should be $8,000 and $10,000. People have to understand that a penalty is a penalty. It’s nothing you can just pick up US$12 or US$50 and pay off. They (businesses) could put it (their containers) on the road for 10 days and pull out $25,000 out their pocket easy because they have $50M worth in the container,” he said to councillors who were evidently in agreement.

Some months ago, City Hall had decided to implement a $25,000 container fee, but this attracted much from members of the business community and the PSC.

Some businessmen had also resorted to the courts, accusing the M&CC of illegally implementing such a fee. The court had ruled in favour of the businessmen.

City Hall has stressed, though, that money is needed to repair roads which the containers have been damaging over the years.

After the subsequent formation of the tripartite committee, the mayor had criticised the PSC’s slothfulness in addressing the cost for the contentious container fees issue, declaring that she was not sure if the delay was a means of stalling the work of City Hall.

“Even though we are collecting the $5000 retroactive from August 1, in the interim, I don’t want to have an interim of five years. I need to have that interim period completed as early as possible so that we can move forward,” Chase-Green had said.

The M&CC had decided to reduce the container fee from $25,000 to $5,000 following a meeting on August 5 with the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) and the PSC.

It was agreed that the reduction would be an interim measure and that the fees would be collected at the various ports and wharves as of last August 1.