…municipalities welcome initiative

THE promised countrywide property valuation, that will help local government organs improve their collection of rates and taxes, is scheduled to commence next month in the town of New Amsterdam, before moving farther afield.

A contract to the value of approximately $330M has been awarded to a Canadian company, Municipal Property Assessment of Ontario, an entity that does property evaluation for the province of Ontario, as well as other provinces in Canada and other countries.
Minister of Communities Ronald Bulkan, in an interview last Friday, confirmed that the company will begin evaluations next month.

“They’re expected to start their pilot work in New Amsterdam next month. They are committed to completing a national property inventory by the end of next year. So it will be an inventory of all properties across the country with accurate, current date values. That information will be provided to each council, whether it’s an NDC or town,” Bulkan said.
The purpose of the evaluations is to assist the municipalities to garner more finances so as to allow a ‘weaning’ of them off government financial support.

Rates and taxes from property are a primary source of revenue for local government authorities; however, there has been no evaluation of properties since the 1970s, so councils are without the necessary information to determine the proper rates and taxes to apply to properties in their areas.

“The question of taxation will not be one that will be determined by the central government. It will be determined individually by each of the 80 councils. Right now in the absence of a property evaluation system, that has accurate information, those councils are handicapped in being able to determine what rates are to be applied, because those values as applied to individual properties are far from accurate,” Bulkan explained.

“So it’s that modernisation, that framework or regime that central government is committed to, because we believe it is the single most important activity that will lead to financial sustainability and viability of our local government organs.”

Mayors and other local government organs voiced their appreciation to see the evaluations completed, noting that they would have many uses for the new income.

In Anna Regina, Mayor Rabindranauth Mohan averages that his municipality could collect as much as $8 – $9 million dollars more in rates and taxes, annually, if the properties in the area are properly evaluated and the right taxes applied.

He contends that only approximately 55-60 per cent of properties within the area pay taxes. Since valuations have not been done in four decades, newly constructed properties do not pay anything.

“We would’ve had a lot of new homes constructed and they were not valued, and we had a lot of new schemes– four new schemes in the township. The new properties were not valued, so those people don’t pay anything. So what we have is those who have very old buildings and they’re paying and newcomers basically ride free,” Mohan remarked.
Additionally, for those properties that were evaluated and are paying rates, the rates applied are very outdated as many of the buildings have been modified.
Mohan notes that once the properties are rightly valued and rates and taxes applied, the other problem will be in getting the owners to pay up, given that even in the current situation property owners are errant in their payments.

Mayor of Bartica, Gifford Marshall, believes that this problem could be addressed if a sensitisation campaign is embarked upon to impress upon residents the need for them to pay their rates and taxes.

“Persons are still of the opinion that the monies to do works in the municipality should come directly from central government, which is not the case. This is because of a lack of sensitisation of persons paying their taxes,” said Marshall.

The last time property evaluations were done, Bartica was a village. According to Gifford, in Bartica, just fewer than 40 per cent of the properties pay any taxes. He commended the government for undertaking this initiative to rectify the situation.

Marshall noted that he would also be lobbying central government for part of the taxes garnered from quarrying works in his township to go to the local government.