THE two major garbage contractors attached to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) are willing to resume work, but have not heard from City Hall ever since they opted to withdraw their services in early August.

Representatives of Puran Brothers Disposal Services and Cevons Waste Management, Kalesh Puran and Morse Archer told the Guyana Chronicle recently that they would be happy to resume work, but the City Council is silent.
The M&CC had said that the pulling out by the contractors ‘opened their eyes’ to the possibility that they can provide the same services competently on their own and the money saved could  be paid to the contractors to cover heavy, outstanding debts.
“We can’t work without payment. If we don’t have working capital, what’s the sense in working? We didn’t receive a cent since. We keep calling, but we get no positive feedback. We haven’t received a dollar. They need to sit and talk with us,” Puran commented.
Since the last meeting was held between the parties early in August, Puran said another has not been called.

Archer is saying that even before the contractors decided to pull their services, the M&CC would schedule meetings with them and then postpone them.
“We’d be happy to resume, but nobody is talking to us. It’s been about five weeks now.”
Solid Waste Management Director Walter Narine said he preferred not to comment on the issue of a failure to call meetings with the contractors.
Town Clerk Royston King has said the M&CC is looking forward to opening new talks with the contractors and setting new conditions, especially since the contracts are up for review in October. The contracts, which feature a review clause, remain in force until 2020.
“We are preparing to re-engage our contractors within another month, to open new talks with them… and to set new conditions, so that we can move forward,” King said at a press conference.

City Hall, through its Solid Waste Management Department, has undertaken to provide garbage collection and disposal services throughout Georgetown, with assistance from a few small contractors.
But King has subsequently reported that the trucks and other equipment belonging to M&CC are very old and have never been subjected to this type of pressure before, since the municipality had been depending on the contractors.
“They’re now being put to the test,” King offered, and this, he said, is affecting the way the M&CC is collecting the city’s waste.
According to King, the M&CC is now moving to procure trucks from overseas, so that it can eventually cover 60 per cent of garbage collection and divide the remaining 40 per cent between contractors.
“While we have been paying and building private contractors, improving their capacity, we have neglected our own capacity, so we really have limited capacity to do what we’re doing. So we must re-think our operations and build our capacity and so if we hire contractors, they will not be doing the bulk of the work,” King said.
The two contractors opted to pull their garbage-collection services from the city due to outstanding balances from the M&CC.
King had told city councillors in July 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 sums for the years 2015 and 2016.