– Mayor Chase-Green

GEORGETOWN Mayor Patricia Chase-Green said she wants closure to the container fees issue that is to be ironed out by a tripartite committee, but that the Private Sector Commission (PSC) appears to be stalling the process again.

She told the media on Wednesday at her office that just recently after a meeting was held, all of the parties were in favour of another meeting that was fixed for July 11, 2018.
“Everyone present agreed July 11th was an appropriate time, only to be told by text message that the PSC could not make it because somebody had somewhere to go and what not. And that we would be informed as to when,” Chase-Green disclosed.

She added: “I find that very disturbing because we need to bring this container fee issue to a close. I understand they [PSC] had elections, new presidents and all of that, but the work goes on and again we are stalled, waiting on a time.”

The PSC continues to be opposed to an increase in container fees, and a meeting held recently after many months to bring closure to the issue has failed to move the process forward in favour of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC).

The (M&CC) wants the fees to be increased from $5000 per container to at least $8,000 for a 20-foot container, and $10,000 for those that are either 40 or 45 feet in length.
The City Council has been complaining that the containers continue to severely damage city roads, leaving the municipality to foot the bill to have them repaired.
The $5000 per container 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,” Chase-Green had 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,” she said, adding:

“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.”
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’ being parked in front of people’s premises. According to her, the City Council should no longer allow these 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 had attracted much flak from members of the business community and the PSC.