THE Mayor and City Council (M&CC) will be consulting for the first time Wednesday on the controversial parking meter project that the government recently suspended for three months.
Mayor Patricia Chase-Green told reporters on the sidelines of Monday’s statutory meeting that the entire contract will be perused by councillors, and details such as cost, meters in front of schools and hospitals, etc. will be fine-tuned.
“This is the first consultation with councillors, and then we will move on to a wider cross-section of people,” the mayor told reporters.
Meanwhile, at a consultation with business owners last week, Councillor and Member of the City Council’s Finance Committee,Junior Garrett said the parking meters are here to stay.
During the course of the meeting, Bourda businessman Suresh Narine said he could not see himself supporting the parking meter system, since 80 per cent of the profits will be going to Smart City Solutions (SCS), the company that was granted the concession by M&CC to install the meters.
In response to Narine’s observation, Garrett had made it clear that like it or not, the parking meters are here to stay.
He later told the Guyana Chronicle that in saying so, all he’d done was to merely repeat what Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan had said recently during a radio programme.
“It has to remain! How are you going to have development in a country without order!” Garrett said, adding:
“People are driving wild on the road; all of the ABC (American, British and Canadian) countries that help us pay parking fees! Why shouldn’t we!”
Garrett said that parking meters date back to 1966 when the Council was in negotiations with a company called Sandbach Parker to have them installed.
He is of the view, however, that the cost to park will “definitely” have to be reduced.
Meanwhile, Town Clerk Royston King had said during last Thursday’s meeting with members of the business community,in response to Narine’s comment,that the City Council had everything to gain from the parking meter deal, as it stands to make 20 per cent of the profits without having spent a penny.
“The spaces that we’re getting nothing from now we could’ve been getting 20 per cent; some people are even selling on them but we are getting nothing,” King said.
Former Deputy Mayor,Sherod Duncan had referred to King, Garrett, the mayor, and Councillor Oscar Clarke as the “fantastic four” following their overseas trip to look into the matter of parking meters.