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Regular Waste ‘pickup’ stalls in city

May 05, 2011 News

– As waste disposal contractors withdraw service

A garbage dilemma is likely to unfold in the city of Georgetown within days if the service of garbage disposal contractors is not retained.
By afternoon yesterday the contractors – Cevon’s Waste Management and Puran Brothers Waste Disposal Service – had withdrawn their services due to failure on the part of the municipality to honour outstanding payments.
More than $70 M is owed to the two contractors, and according Acting Public Relations Officer, Debra Lewis, the debt represents payment from as far back as December last year.
In light of City Hall’s financial situation, the contractors have together requested that they be provided with payment for works completed up to February.
Reports are that the part payment will enable them to offset expenses that they have already incurred due to council’s non-payment.
But according to Lewis, in an invited comment yesterday, “I don’t think that Council has the capacity to pay the contractors right now.”
She noted that the municipality is reaching out to the business community and rate payers in general to pay up all outstanding taxes.  And due to the withdrawal of the waste disposal service, Lewis said that residents and business owners alike, within the city, are being urged not to put out their garbage for fear that there will be no collection.
Those with the ability to transport their garbage to the Haags Bosch, East Bank Demerara, waste disposal site will be permitted to do so.
“We are urging residents to store their garbage properly and to soak them with disinfectant wherever possible to ensure that their environment remains  hygienic…
“We are appealing to persons not to dump their garbage indiscriminately as Council tries desperately to remedy this development.”
At the moment, Lewis said that Council is in intense consultation with the contractors and “we are trying to strike a bargain with them.”
In the interim though, Lewis said that council will mobilise its own resources so as to ensure that a garbage crisis does not develop.
“We have mobilised our own trucks and drivers to pick up garbage in case of accumulation in parts of the city…we are going to try our best to avoid a real crisis situation.”
Though vigorous efforts are being made to address the situation, Lewis noted that Council is aware that the problem is not likely to be resolved this week.
She noted that every measure will be employed to bring the situation back to normalcy in the new week.
As part of its strategic plan, Council has already started to identify defaulting rate payers who will be taken to court should they fail to honour their civic responsibility, Lewis said.
It was just last week that City Mayor Hamilton Green revealed that City Hall continues to suffer from an advanced budget deficit.  He had predicted even then that the state of affairs could have led to the garbage contractors withdrawing their services.
According to Mayor Green the contractors have started to “act up…understandably so.”
At a recent statutory meeting, he said that he had tried to make contact with Minister of Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, to no avail, in an attempt to have government pay taxes for the first quarter of this year.
“This will allow some degree of elbow room,” Mayor Green had added.

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