CITY Hall on Monday morning had dialogue with a number of business persons from Georgetown to discuss why it has become necessary to charge a separate fee for their commercial waste disposal.

But business owners are not happy about the increase and made their feelings known at the meeting.
“But we have to get over this notion that business people are wealthy and have a lot of cash,” said one businessman, Mr. Suresh Narine, who has been doing business for some 50 years now.

“We have our expenses too. You’re killing those who are trying to comply but not going after those who are delinquent (in their payments of taxes),” the Bourda businessman, who claimed to be up-to-date with his payments of rates and taxes, said.

Mayor Patricia Chase-Green lamented that City Hall cannot afford to keep up with the weekly amount of $1.8M that has to be spent weekly to clear commercial waste only. As such, the municipality, through its Solid Waste Management Department, headed by Mr. Walter Narine, has scheduled a series of meetings to talk with businesses on the way forward regarding garbage disposal.

Deputy Mayor Lionel Jaikarran, in brief remarks, said he was disappointed at the low turn-out at the meeting in view of the fact that an invitation was placed in the press and on social media.

The Mayor said the refusal of businesses not to show constitutes gross disrespect for the council. When decisions are made, she observed that it is the same individuals who complain that they were never consulted.

“They’re too disrespectful to the council! They’re accustomed to the lawlessness over the years and they want to remain like that,” she charged.

Chase-Green said the City Council is at the moment cash-strapped and has reached its “boiling point,” where it simply cannot afford the cost to remove commercial waste. She referred to the building at the corners of Regent and King Streets, which formerly housed the Acme Photo Studio, but which now houses more than 10 stores. Although the waste here has increased significantly, the fee being charged has remained the same, she noted.

Though there have been talks of the implementation of a new fee for commercial waste, City Hall officials have remained mum on just how much they are proposing to charge. Notwithstanding, the mayor threatened that should businesses refuse to pay the new fee, City Hall will have to resort to using the law to discipline them.

“Businesses want to use every little space in front of them but doesn’t want to pay the council anything,” Chase-Green said. Mr. Walter Narine offered that Georgetown represents 30 percent of the country’s population and has another 10 percent passing through each day. He appealed to businesses to keep waste receptacles on their premises and not only for their benefit, but for that of their customers.

He called attention to the practice of businesses that sweep dust into the drains thus resulting in a host of problems that have to be cared for by City Hall. This, he noted, is notwithstanding the fact that many businesses do not remit their rates and taxes to the council in a timely fashion.

Town Clerk Royston King noted that even if citizens pay all of their outstanding taxes, the council will still fall short of enough money to cover everything it has to do.

“We can no longer ask businesses to pay one flat tax; one property tax that has to cover garbage. Those who use more of the city’s resources must pay more. It’s only fair.”

King said the implementation of a new fee is in order, because the service of waste disposal is a very expensive one that the council cannot afford at the moment.

“We do not have the money to sustain what we’ve started,” he noted, while referring to all the clean-up works that council has done in the past. Meanwhile, the businessman mentioned earlier, urged City Hall not to pressure the business people, but to maximise the use of its resources.