Dear Editor,

THE announcement by the Town Clerk of Georgetown of new and special rates for the collection and disposal of waste from businesses in the city and the charging of a tax that he is calling a ‘haulage fee’ on private contractors, who are providing collection and disposal services to these businesses, is nothing short of financial terrorism and extortion.

The Private Sector and Chamber of Commerce needs to take the matter to court to stop its implementation for a number of reasons, including the following: (1.) It is not a decision of the full Council, as he is alleging. Could he produce the agenda for, and the minutes of, the meeting of full Council that approved this proposal? (2.) It is illegal and double taxation, as the Council a number of years ago hiked the percentage charged for property rates on businesses to a whopping 250% (quite a substantial difference than that which is paid for residential property rates, which is 40%). And, the justification they used for that hike was to cover the cost of collecting and disposing of commercial waste.

They cannot now charge another fee for the same purpose. The objective of collecting property rates includes for the provision of refuse collection and disposal services. (3.) There was not sufficient consultation on the matter. Could he provide evidence of the extensive consultations and discussions with different stakeholders, including members of the local private sector and non-governmental organisations and community-based groups, as he alleges? (4.) What methodology is he using and what competence does he have for determining which is a small businesses that would have to pay City Hall GYD$5,000 per month; a medium businesses GYD$8,000 per month and a large businesses GYD$12,000 per month?.

(5) The City Council is neither the GRA, nor a licensing authority and therefore the decision to charge a percentage earned by private contractors, who are hauling industrial and commercial waste through Georgetown is just punitive and spiteful. These contractors are helping the Council, as it is the Council’s responsibility to provide this service for the rates they collect. And how will he monitor and implement it – by putting drones overhead to follow the private garbage collectors around?

This tax is reminiscent of the illegal container tax that they attempted to implement, and is vindictive against the two contractors who had to withdraw their services.

They say they cannot afford the 50 million dollars per month for garbage collection, but can they afford the more than 100 million dollars they dole out each month in salaries? Why are they not talking about that also? The culture of private garbage collection was created by them when they abandoned their own system of garbage collection. Why did they change it? Who benefited from this change? What is needed now is not increased revenue, but better management of the Council.

Regards
Amber Valentine