…summoned by City Hall to meeting today

BOTH of City Hall’s major garbage contractors – Puran Brothers Disposal Services and Cevons Waste Management–feel that the municipality has ‘squandered’ a great opportunity provided by central government recently to bail it out of millions of dollars in debt.
The help government had provided expired last December 31, and ever since, the two contractors have put a pause on their operations, complaining that City Hall did not contact them even once during the five-week period.

“Up until Old Year’s Day, we were looking out; hoping to hear from them,” manager at Puran’s, Mr. Kaleshwar Puran, told the Guyana Chronicle on Wednesday. However, both he and Mr. Morse Archer from Cevon’s Waste Management indicated that Town Clerk, Royston King, invited them to a meeting today (Thursday) at City Hall.

“It has not been our company’s impression that City Hall had made any serious effort to use the November 27–December 31 period to seek re-engagement with its long-term garbage collection contractors,” Archer said in a statement.

“Cevons Waste Management wishes to make it clear that it stands altogether prepared to continue to serve our country’s capital in the manner that it has done for some years. We believe, however, the objective observers would understand, even embrace our position that it is altogether undesirable to provide the service…under conditions which, just recently, resulted in much difficulty for our capital,” he added.

The contractors had opted to pull their services last August when the city council had racked up more than $400M in debt to the two companies. Although the companies had agreed to wait for payments for the years 2015 and 2016, the municipality was not even keeping up with its current balances for 2017.

Government stepped in and paid the contractors all of the outstanding balances and even went further to create a special arrangement to cover services up to the end of the year.
During this time, the contractors had anticipated that the city council would make some effort to contact them on a new system beginning 2018.

Garbage has begun piling up again at various quarters in the city and some observers are questioning the tardiness with which the city council has been approaching the matter.
“I’m deeply disappointed that even with the help of Central Government in 2018 of a bail out, City Hall’s administration still managed not to meet in a timely manner with our solid waste contractors to smoothly transition to a viable working arrangement for 2018,” Alliance for Change (AFC) Councillor Sherod Duncan said in a Facebook post on Wednesday.

“This has caused the contractors to suspend their services to the city. This intransigence in the attitude of City Hall’s administration is UNACCEPTABLE!” Duncan added.
Asked how the Council will manage on its own from this month, the town clerk only last week told this publication: “I would say citizens have absolutely nothing to worry about in terms of collection and disposal of their garbage as of January.”

“We are aware that we have an obligation towards the city to ensure there’s an effective and efficient collection and disposal of the city’s wastes. The committee is considering inviting other small contractors to be part of the whole arrangement to provide solid waste management infrastructure and also to help with the collection and disposal of wastes,” he said. Within the first quarter of 2018, he said the city council will be moving to charge residents a fee for the collection and disposal of their household waste.

“We are now moving to ask residents in local communities to help us, as we subsidise the collection of waste, by paying a small fee. I understand that they are looking at perhaps $200 a barrel,” he informed.