– Minister of Communities confirms

MINISTER of Communities Ronald Bulkan on Saturday confirmed that the government has changed its mind and will provide a 100 per cent bailout to the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) for its debts to the two main garbage contractors.

Bulkan had told the Guyana Chronicle recently that the government had decided to payoff 75 per cent of what was owed by City Hall to the garbage contractors.

He also confirmed that in addition to the bailout, the government has entered into an arrangement with the contractors for them to provide services to the city for the rest of the year.

“The Central Government remains very concerned over the many issues raised in the recently concluded Commission of Inquiry (CoI) and will continue to monitor the workings of this council to raise its performance level,” Bulkan had said, adding, that the government is also mindful of not saddling the new council with onerous liabilities.

Four weeks have elapsed since the contractors – Puran Brothers Disposal Services and Cevons Waste Management Inc. – decided to pull their services from the city, with both of them saying that they simply did not have the resources to continue working without pay.
At the time of the pull out, only one garbage truck belonging to the City Council was in good working order. While acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry gave all assurances that other trucks belonging to the municipality would be repaired and placed on the streets, the municipality opted to hire smaller contractors to do the work.

Harry had said that the new contractors hired are Granderson, C&S, Trash Tech, Tri Star and Garbage Eaters.

Solid Waste Director Walter Narine on Sunday told the Guyana Chronicle, that initially five contractors were to come onboard. However, this did not work out. “Initially, we had five contractors, but we ended up doing the majority of the work with only two of them, along with the Solid Waste Department. They gave us assurances that they will come but never turned up.”

According to him, some of the contractors also wanted to choose which groups in Georgetown they should be assigned to work in.

NOT TRUE
Outgoing Mayor of Georgetown Patricia Chase-Green has denied allegations that her son is one of the private garbage collectors contracted by the M&CC, urging those who have been spreading such a rumour to desist from so doing and even threatened legal action.
The Guyana Chronicle was told that Chase-Green’s son is allegedly the owner of one of the garbage companies registered in Georgetown, but under the name of a close friend of her son.

However, when asked about the issue, Chase-Green responded that her son at reference does not have a business and that she does not know the smaller contractors who were hired, other than when she saw them around the horse-shoe table. In the same interview however, Chase-Green confessed that she was “friends” with those smaller contractors.
“I am friends with everybody. I have friends all over the place. Cevons is my friend; Puran’s is my friend; all the other small contractors are my friends. So what happen if I talk to someone? And whosoever is giving you the information should read 28:01 (The Municipal Councils and District Act). And, they gotta stop it, or I will carry Chronicle to court, y’all trust me.”

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle and the Stabroek News reporters following last Monday’s statutory meeting, Chase-Green said about the allegation: “Let them bring the evidence, I’m fed up of them. I don’t know about that; I’m not aware of that. And if Chronicle got that information, let them deal with it. I am not aware; it is not true. My son’s business? My son doesn’t have any business. And even if he had a business, the law provided for that. He doesn’t have a business. And whoever is spreading that should say what business they have and what interest they have in it. I don’t know the small contractors, other than when they sat around this horse-shoe table. If anyone of them is a friend of my son, am I to [be] blame for that? What nonsense!”

CHALLENGING
Staff in the Solid Waste Department has had to work beyond normal working hours to get the work done, in view of the fact that not all of the smaller contractors turned out to work. “Worked started at 4 am and ended till 1 am the next morning in the Solid Waste Department; with the one truck. The Solid Waste staff would’ve really, really worked hard during the season. It was challenging,” Narine said.

Following the latest arrangement by the government and the two contractors, Cevons will provide services for the rest of the year to Georgetown’s Groups Five and Six. Groups Seven and Nine will be covered by Puran Brothers, which has already put back its compactor at the Albouystown Market. Cevons has also put back its compactor at the Bourda Market.

“That help is welcome because the last week of Christmas and the one after Christmas would see a lot more garbage than normal. So that help is most welcome,” Narine expressed.

Both contractors wrote to the M&CC recently, stating that it was not that they wanted to stop working, but that their current financial positions could not permit them to continue working without pay.

The contractors have not been paid since last June, and even though the M&CC announced that it was going to make a part payment some time ago, none has since been forthcoming.

Representatives of both companies said that they were frustrated by the M&CC’s inability to make timely payments to them.

The contractors had opted to pull their services in August 2017 when the City Council had racked up more than $400M in debts 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.

The 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 that year.

During that time, the contractors had anticipated that the City Council would have made some effort to contact them on a new system beginning in 2018.