…but criticses City Hall as being disingenuous

IN a recent press conference the Mayor of Georgetown Ubraj Narine disclosed that the Giftland Mall owes the City Council over $103M in rates and taxes, and that the owner of the mega complex, Roy Beepat, is reluctant to honour this debt.

On Saturday, Beepat responded to Narine’s claims, saying that they are ‘disingenuous.’ In fact, he is of the view that Narine’s claim is inherently political.
Beepat said in his response that Giftland has made every effort to be compliant with its taxes and have been actively pursuing City Hall for the last five years, in an effort to have this amicably settled. He said that several letters have been sent, but there was no response on the discussions held.

“We have been led down the garden path by Royston King who had negotiated a settlement, but in three years despite our many attempts to have this drawn into a binding, written contract, this was never done by the city side; the mayor has conveniently neglected to point this out. We sat with the mayor this year in our offices and made agreements to have this resolved after weeks of prompting. To our surprise we eventually received a written correspondence not in line with our discussions. Against the agreement made to keep this year’s current taxes paid were applied against the illegally imposed interest figures,” Beepat contends.

However, at his press conference the mayor did point out the unsuccessful engagements with the former Town Clerk Royston King. In fact, he said that they did agree to honour the settlement and waive the interest from when King had engaged Beepat, but they would like him to start paying the correct interest as of 2020. Narine said that Beepat responded in contradiction to that agreement and doesn’t want to honour any interest whatsoever.
Beepat claims that the mayor intends to solicit interest at 21 per cent which he believes is unlawful, and is a penalty in the figure of approximately $43 Million.

“Despite being told that the mall had paid close to $500 million on public works which included the public access road to the mall and the Demerara Estate, street-lighting, bus shed and public transportation , walkways and irrigation. This mayor was also told that up to the time of writing, the mall had not received the benefit of one day of service from the City services; we have installed our own sewerage treatment plant, we clean the roads and public areas, we have laid in our own piping for water supplies, and many other duties which taxes are paid for, but which has been borne by us.

I repeat, the city has not provided not one day of service whatsoever, has no consideration for the hundreds of millions which has been spent on their behalf ; they have refused to provide even basic garbage collection for taxes which they are demanding. Additionally, they want to charge interest at 21 per cent for bills which were sent retrospectively before any agreement was in place , and for the years that we were trying to achieve a settlement and figure to pay they want to apply interest, although the delay was due to their lack of commitment for negotiating a settlement,” Beepat articulated.

In concluding, he said that the mayor has taken a position of attack that is not in keeping with the groundwork which has been set and for which payments have already started to be made in good faith to keep negotiations going.

“And unless there is reasonableness, then this will be settled in our law courts. We the people, should speak out against this victimisation of myself and the Giftland Mall which provides income to thousands and their families, a safe haven for visitors and residents alike. We need to point out the obvious, the mayor is supposed to be a principled, religious, decent, and honest person, he is a pandit.

I am kindly requesting that he remembers these principles and behave within these moral responsibilities for which he is bound. It is the Giftland Group’s wish that one day we reach the political maturity to be able to disagree amicably, without resort to character assassination,” Beepat said.