Puran Brothers, Cevons resume work today
City residents have been struggling to dispose of their garbage
City residents have been struggling to dispose of their garbage

— City Hall promises to pay every month

THE two main garbage contractors of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) have indicated that they will resume their services from today (Friday), following an engagement with top city officials on Thursday.

Both Puran Brothers Disposal Services and Cevons Waste Management had put a pause on waste collection in the city as of last January 1st because the City Council had failed to contact them on the way forward in 2018.

This was after Government had bailed the municipality out of millions of dollars in debt owed to the said contractors and even paid for services up to the end of the year 2017.

Mayor Patricia Chase-Green, Deputy Mayor Lionel Jaikarran and Town Clerk Royston King met with representatives of the two companies, along with other officers of the municipality and councillors.

The five-year contract with the two companies was reactivated and the City Council has promised to pay for services at the end of every month.

Jaikarran, in his capacity as Chairman of the Markets and Public Health Committee, told Guyana Chronicle following the meeting, that the City Council proposed certain amendments to the contract and that the contractors were given some time to respond.

Some of the amendments have to do with reducing the frequency of waste collection in certain areas from twice to once weekly, Jaikarran informed.

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. But no such contact was made.

Garbage has begun piling up again at various quarters in the City.

“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,” the Town Clerk told this publication last week.

Within the first quarter of 2018, King 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.

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