TWO of Georgetown’s major garbage contractors, Puran Brothers Disposal Services and Cevons Waste Management, have informed the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) on Friday morning that they will be taking industrial action with immediate effect.

Although not a complete pull out, as the contractors will continue to clear garbage from the municipal markets and some other facilities, there will however, be no garbage collection from households between Cummings Lodge, East Coast Demerara (ECD), and Agricola, on the East Bank of Demerara (EBD).

The contractors, last Wednesday, had signalled their intention to the M&CC that they will pull their services and were subsequently invited to a meeting at City Hall to negotiate.

City Hall provided a written proposal to the firms as to when payments for garbage collection will resume. M&CC is owing in excess of $300M.

Instead of receiving a feedback from the contractors on the proposed way forward, City Hall received telephone calls that the companies would be taking strike action.

Contacted Friday, both contractors acknowledged that they decided to pull their services due to outstanding balances from the M&CC.

While Managing Director for Puran’s Kaleshwar Puran, opted not to comment further on the issue, Cevon’s Director Morse Archer offered that the M&CC owes them for services dating back to August 2015.

Archer is saying that the company has to be paid a substantial amount before it resumes any work.

But Solid Waste Management Director Walter Narine told Chronicle on Friday that he expected some more maturity on the part of the garbage contractors.

“This is not good for Georgetown and even for all the employees that they (the contractors) had to send home. Some more maturity should have been shown. If they didn’t like our proposal, they could have come back to us and say so. But we’ve been doing business with them for many years now and so I am very confident that they will come back to us with a proposal,” said Narine.

According to him, City Hall will not continue negotiations under duress and the contractors will have to resume work before such negotiations can proceed.
Narine said he has already put in place some arrangements to deal with this new development.
“We have some small contractors, together with us (M&CC). We will have to manage,” he said.

INCREASINGLY DIFFICULT
Just last month, Town Clerk, Royston King told city councillors that the M&CC was finding it increasingly difficult to honour its financial obligations to the contractors.

He said Council has been trying to keep up with current bills, although it has outstanding amounts for the years 2015 and 2016.

King said it was “extremely difficult” for the Council to sustain payments to these contractors because the municipality is being asked to do more with less resources. He pointed out that the Council is now doing more drainage works than it did before.

Although help has been forthcoming from the Ministry of Infrastructure, it is often inadequate, King noted, and called for the commercial fee to be implemented as soon as possible, and for the container-fee issue to be sorted out.

Meanwhile, in a press statement, the M&CC said the monthly payment to both contractors is $45M.

“Council’s limited financial resources, combined with its conduct to its employees and statutory obligations to provide a wide range of vital municipal services to local communities, has facilitated a payment delay on the current accounts of the contractors for 2017.

“As a result, the Council entered into discussions with the two contractors and offered a proposal going forward to settle its accounts with them. The proposal is with our contractors and the Council awaits their counter proposal and general reaction to it,” City Hall said.

In the meantime, M&CC said the administration will employ all of its resources using an inter-departmental approach to keep the City clean and that a schedule of new collection arrangements and advisories will be published in the local media shortly.

Furthermore, M&CC said the City Treasurer’s Department has intensified its revenue collection drive to recover outstanding sums owed by corporations and individual property owners.

“Council needs every cent of its money owed by defaulters to continue to provide essential City services.”