THE municipality of Bartica has begun to lobby central government to have a fraction of the taxes garnered from the economic activity there transferred to the township so that it could become more financially independent.

Like the other nine municipalities across the country, Bartica has been looking into ways to garner revenue in the municipality, to ease dependence on subvention from central government.

“A critical aspect of municipality and NDCs is finances to finance our projects and pay staff and so forth,” notes Bartica Mayor, Gifford Marshall.
“So we’re looking forward to come up with solutions in which we can able to better strengthen ourselves financially. Where finances are concerned, we believe that Bartica, having three quarries, should share in that. So we have started to lobby central government to have a fraction of that taxes that those quarries pay.”

For most municipalities, the primary source of independent funds is from rates and taxes on properties. However, with no property valuation done since the 1970s, councils are without the necessary information to determine the proper rates and taxes to apply to properties in their areas. In new townships, virtually no taxes are collected, and in areas where rates and taxes are already applied, the amounts are wholly outdated and relatively small.

In the circumstances, the Ministry of Communities (MoC) has invested in having a countrywide property valuation exercise carried out this year. That project is scheduled to start in the County of Berbice, with the town of New Amsterdam.

A contract to the value of approximately $330M has been awarded to a Canadian company, Municipal Property Assessment of Ontario, which does property evaluation for the province of Ontario, as well as other provinces in Canada and other countries.
But rates and taxes aside, Marshall believes that towns should directly benefit from other economic activities being done therein.

“We believe that every town is different, and in the case of the hinterland towns, especially where Bartica is concerned, we should benefit from whatever is done,” Marshall said, adding: “Presently, we have a system that is designed to send all the resources to the central government.”

He believes that response from central government will be favourable, as he’s not asking for a big percentage.

“Just a fraction; maybe three per cent of the taxes paid to central government,” he said. “That would take us a very far way, because we need to reach to the level where we’re able to fix our own roads, build our bridges and so forth. So we’re going to continue to lobby for that, and this government is trying to change that so we can have that sorted out and have increased finances.”