MAYOR Ubraj Narine insisted on Monday, that the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) ought to be issuing receipts with its Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), something that City Treasurer, John Douglas, said has never been done since his employment at the municipality.

At Monday’s statutory meeting, Narine demanded an answer from Douglas on why the current receipts are not carrying City Hall’s TIN, owing to the fact that the laws governing the municipality require this. The mayor said he wanted to urge that this practice be implemented, even for vendors who have to be issued receipts.

He said this should be done in the interest of transparency and that he couldn’t understand how Douglas had no knowledge of this. Douglas said that one possible reason the TIN is not attached to the receipts is because the M&CC is not a profit-making organisation. He promised to do some research on the issue and provide feedback to the mayor by Wednesday.

Councillor Clayton Hinds offered that if the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) has issued a TIN to the M&CC, then no research is needed. He reasoned that the TIN provision means that it is a requirement for M&CC to issue its receipts with it.

Meanwhile, the M&CC took a decision recently to have one generic receipt issued to all those doing business with the municipality. Different receipts were being issued by departments, at times without the necessary revenue stamps. There have been complaints that customers are not certain on some occasions whether the receipt they have been issued is from the City Council or from private individuals. The decision was also taken in view of the fact that some revenue collectors may have resigned or may be out of the system, but this may not be known to customers.

The Procurement and Rates Department is expected to look into the matter of procuring one standard receipt book for all departments.

Meanwhile, in the interest of greater transparency and accountability, the M&CC decided that beginning March 1 last year, all casual and itinerant vendors would pay their rent and other fees at special booths, and no longer through revenue collectors. “No monies would be collected by anyone other than persons officially assigned in those booths to do so,” former Town Clerk Royston King had said about the new system. The new initiative was rolled out first at Bourda Market and was intended to be taken to the other municipal markets.

The revenue collectors, however, were not pleased with the new system and had started to complain. “There have to be changes in all the departments of the City Council. As long as you are in the system, you have to work with the guidelines. We are your employers. If we change a procedure, and you don’t want to do it, then the choice is yours,” former mayor Patricia Chase-Green said.

In keeping with the change, the town clerk explained that they will now be verifying officers in place of revenue collectors. “They, along with staff from the City Treasurer’s Department and Internal Audit, will check and verify receipts. Those who are not in possession of official council receipts would not be permitted to sell or carry on business. The objective is to allow the vendors to make a livelihood in a clean and safe environment,” King had explained.