ENGAGING legal services to deal with defaulting tax payers; putting in place a stray catchers system for animals on the roadways; and seeing the transformation of the Anna Regina Community Centre into a modernized stadium, are among some of the plans for the township that Mayor of Anna Regina Rajendra Prabulall will be pushing for in 2020.
Prabulall shared that it was also the Council’s hope to begin lobbying for a hospital and a branch of the University of Guyana to be established in the Region, as well as the overall beautification of the township.

Prabulall, who was recently re-elected to serve his second term as Mayor, informed that for this past year, serving his first term as Mayor, a proliferation of animals, especially donkeys, on the road, and defaulting tax payers were two of the biggest problems faced by the township.

The municipality is currently owed approximately $15 million in taxes, and even as he calls for the taxes to be increased, he wants those who owe to pay up.
“The tax payers didn’t pay on time, we didn’t achieve 100% collection of rates and taxes, which we are hoping to achieve come 2020,” Prabulall related.

“What we are going to do, is engage legal services at the Council so that persons are going to be getting legal notices now to pay up their arrears rates. We had training from the Ministry of Communities in December, where they were teaching us about the rates and taxes and how to add compound interest and so on, which was very good.”

Prabulall believes the council was left with no choice but to go the legal route, as other measures were proving futile. The situation was becoming a frustrating one given that many were refusing to pay notwithstanding being visited and written to.

“We have one rice miller who owes about $1.1 million, despite several visits to him, and that is arrears rates and taxes. Despite we sent notices to these people, we went out to the fields to talk to them to pay, we have a large amount of taxes still outstanding, from over the years. It’s about $15 million.”

The issue with the collection of rates and taxes is a longstanding one faced by municipalities all across Guyana. The Councils complain both of outdated tax values applied to properties, as well as having a hard time getting owners to make their payments, regardless of the amount.

The municipalities need taxes in order to keep the Council financially viable. In the place of the lack of taxes, Councils currently receive subventions from the central government. For 2019 the subvention had been increased to $20 million.

Towards resolving the issue of outdated taxes, the Ministry of Communities had scheduled to conduct a countrywide valuation exercise on buildings, so that the applied rates and taxes can be updated. However even with updated rates, the issue of municipalities equipping themselves to compel persons to pay remains a challenge.

Recently, Mayors, including Prabulall, had called for the reformation of the Municipal and District Councils Act Chapter 28:01, which governs the municipalities and speaks to penalties for defaulting tax payers.

Notwithstanding the challenges over the past year, the Mayor was satisfied with the work of the Council and was looking forward to coming closer to fixing the issues, come 2020.
“The first year for me was very challenging. But there was a satisfactory way in which we executed our subvention work, where we used money to do projects and so on. We didn’t get to achieve all that we want, because we had some limited resources,” Prabulall shared.
“I did a lot of reaching out to residents and at community meetings, talking about the development in the community and what we want to do. The people were very enthusiastic and wanted to get involved in sports and so on so we engaged them at that level. I met with a lot of young people. We got the grounds weeded, and a lot of people came out [for sports events]. We had football and cricket.”

Given the massive feedback for sports, Prabulall believes the time was right for facilities in the area to be developed so that bigger level events can be held in the Essequibo region.
“We want to make the Anna Regina Centre Ground stadium-like, and we’re hoping to attract funding for it, so that the business community and others can benefit. We don’t have any matches of national or international standard in Essequibo, so we want to do that,” Prabulall conveyed.

The modernization of the sporting facilities, fits into an overall beautification plan that the Council envisions for the capital town in the Pomeroon-Supenaam Region.
“Our aim is to modernize the Anna Regina town. We want to move away from just weeding and start landscaping these places. We want a clean beautiful town. Have proper pavements for people to walk and so on,” Prabulall explained.

Towards that end, vending in the township, and the removal of animals straying on the road, need to be addressed.

“Vending is a big problem that we have, and we want to ensure that something is in the pipeline that these markets can be addressed properly and this roadside vending can move off. It makes our town look very shanty-town looking and we don’t want that,” he said.
As it pertains to animals on the roadways, Prabulall said that the Council had written to the Ministry of Public Security and was promised a stray catchers truck. He was hopeful that the promise would become reality in 2020.

“One of the problems that is hitting the township right now is animals on the public road. We have a problem with lots of donkeys on the road, that we faced in 2019, and in 2020 we want to eradicate that problem completely. Even people tying the animals they must move them off,” he says.

“We have engaged people to catch these animals, but they say that they are afraid that residents would want to attack them with cutlass and so on. We engaged the Ministry of [Public Security], Mr. Ramjattan, to get one of those trucks to get animals. The moment we get this truck here this Essequibo road would clear. We are also looking for the assistance of the regional administration to get these donkeys off the road.”

Outside of that, Prabulall said the need for the hospital and Univeristy were some of the wishes highlighted in engagements with residents.

“We’re also calling for a hospital within the township and a branch of the University of Guyana here. We find that our Essequibians are really suffering to go to UG in Georgetown and we find that parents are really, really suffering. If we can have that, that would be a plus for the town, so those are some of our big plans that we have in front of us.