WHEN an institution controlled by the People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) quietly forgives billions in taxes owed by the party, and settles for a fraction of a per cent instead, ordinary citizens are entitled to ask whose interests City Hall is really serving.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall was right to brand the Georgetown City Council’s handling of the Congress Place rates bill “absolutely illegal,” and right to insist that it be investigated and tested in court.
This is a question of basic fairness. Every homeowner, shopkeeper and small business in Georgetown who pays municipal rates on time, often at real sacrifice, has just watched the council extend extraordinary leniency to Maikwak Limited, the company holding Congress Place on behalf of the PNC/R.
A debt reported at more than $6.7 billion has, through an undisclosed process, been settled for roughly $30 million, representing a reduction of over 99 percent. No ordinary ratepayer could dream of such treatment. What explains it is not sound municipal policy; it is political proximity.
Mayor Alfred Mentore’s insistence that this was not technically an “exemption,” and that negotiated settlements have precedent at City Hall, misses the point entirely. The issue is not what label is attached to the arrangement but the glaring conflict of interest running through it.
A council whose composition and political sympathies are entangled with the very movement headquartered at Congress Place cannot credibly claim to have reached this figure through an impartial process.
That is exactly why the law recognises bias and natural justice as grounds to strike down a decision: those who stand to benefit from an outcome should never be the ones deciding it. Invoking “past practice” does not cure that conflict; it only suggests the pattern has gone unchallenged for far too long.
Nandlall’s intervention matters because it elevates this from a political grievance to a legal one. He is correct that any ratepayer has standing to ask the courts to quash the decision, and correct to situate it within the broader jurisprudence on bias in the exercise of public power.
If a council can erase billions in liability for a politically connected entity, the principle that all ratepayers are equal before municipal law effectively collapses. Every citizen who has faced penalties or liens over comparatively trivial arrears deserves an explanation for why different rules appear to govern Congress Place.
The council’s decision should not be allowed to quietly stand. A full, independent investigation must establish exactly how the $30 million figure was reached, who signed off on it, and on what legal authority.
