THE tripartite committee dealing with the issue of an increase in container fees will meet today after many months, Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Green announced on Monday.
After complaining on more than one occasions that the Private Sector Commission (PSC) was stalling the process, the mayor is relieved that a meeting has finally been called.
She told the Guyana Chronicle that she is heading into the meeting with the $8000 and $10,000 figures in mind.
While the council is looking at $8,000 in fees for a 20-foot container and $10,000 for those that are 40 or 45-foot in length, the current amount being paid is a mere $5000 for a container leaving the wharf.
The $5000 was agreed to be paid in the interim before a decision could be taken by the tripartite committee, but approximately two years have gone by without any movement.
“The private sector has no intention of meeting with us, in my opinion,” she said, adding that the Commission keeps requesting meetings on dates they know are days on which statutory meetings are held.
“The private sector is not interested in meeting with this council or moving it forward in any way; two years now and the issue cannot be resolved. We’ve only been writing and writing and writing,” the mayor has complained.
Chase-Green had said that if a meeting is not held between the two parties before the end of May, the city council will proceed to take a decision with regards to increasing the fees.
“Why is it that this council has to bend to the private sector each time? “We started discussions on the issue, and suddenly it went off the road. But we must not hold much longer, because we’re continuing to see the deterioration of our roads,” she said.
Big business owners are also continuing to take advantage of the city council, Chase-Green observed, and thus closure ought to be brought to the matter.
The mayor had also touched on the issue of huge fuel-laden bush trucks parked in front of people’s premises. According to her, the city council should no longer allow these bush trucks to pass Agricola and enter Georgetown because of the amount of damage they are causing to city streets.
Councillor Malcolm Ferreira had said: “People have to understand that a penalty is a penalty; it’s nothing you can just pick up US $12 or US $50 and pay off. They (businesses) could put it (their containers) on the road for 10 days and pull out $25,000 out their pocket easy, because they have $50M worth in the container.”
City Hall had decided to implement a $25,000 container fee, but this attracted much flak from members of the business community and the PSC.
