TOWN Clerk, Royston King was lambasted by Councillors of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) of Georgetown after he announced that the Council owes millions of dollars to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), the Guyana Labour Union and the Credit Union.
As a result, the union and the workers of the municipality have threatened to strike today, if the council does not pay over the money owed to the Government agencies.
The money was a statutory deduction from the salaries of the employees. Employees are required by law to pay NIS and income tax.
Councillors expressed their disagreement with the move since workers were not aware of the decision by the administration of M&CC,to not pay the deductions over to the agencies.
Councillor Akeem Peter, who chaired the statutory meeting in the absence of Mayor Patricia Chase-Green and Deputy Mayor Lionel Jaikaran, said it is one thing to inform the employees about the decision to withhold the money deducted but it is wrong to not tell them.
He then ordered the Town Clerk and the Chairman of the Council’s Finance Committee, Oscar Clarke to present a report on the outstanding fees to the councillors.
“It can be made available as soon as possible but that would not stop the workers from going on strike…presenting the report does not mean we will be able to remit the money to all these agencies,” said Clarke in response to the demand by Peter.
Prior to the request of the report, the City Treasurer presented the sums that are owed to the agencies. He disclosed that the council owes the NIS $116 million with an interest of $9M, the GRA a total of $138M and in excess of $36M to the credit union.
He however pointed out that $10M was paid to the union and $9.3M to the NIS. Income tax deductions and NIS dues were not forwarded since March last year and President of the Guyana Labour Union (GLU), Carville Duncan in a recent statement revealed that $1.5 million in union dues were not remitted for the past three months.
“We have started and we will continue to settle … while we are keeping the current deductions up to date,” said the treasurer.
King said they have made an arrangement with NIS to pay over the deductions and they will soon meet with the Commissioner General of the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA), Godfrey Statia to decide on a way forward.
“What we sought to do last year was to satisfy wages and salaries demand while we wait to remit the deduction to the various agencies…workers would not have received their money even though there was a delay in payment if we did not do that,” said the Town Clerk.
