The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has added to its outstanding debts with some $150M which is owed to its two major solid waste collectors, Puran Brothers Disposal and Cevon’s Waste Management.
During a visit to on Monday to the Haags Bosch landfill site, senior representatives of the solid waste management bodies indicated that they have not been paid for services to the Council since the second quarter of 2018.
Puran Brothers Disposal’s outstanding payment is approximately $73M while $75M is owed to Cevon’s Waste Disposal.
General Manager of Puran Brothers Disposal, Khalesh Puran made this announcement as he said, “We have an outstanding $73M and that’s for services provided within the period of June to date. So far, we haven’t got any positive outcome on the way forward in receiving payments.”
Meanwhile, Business Development Supervisor of Cevon’s Waste Management also nodded at the rates which have not been paid. He explained, “City Hall owes us $75M and that reflects from payments due from May, 2018 to current.”
It was indicated that they have been engaged by the Council on numerous occasions but there haven’t been any discussions on how these payments would be made.They are contemplating on whether or not they will provide services for even another month, given that severe losses are being incurred for operational costs and payments to employees.
These expenses will increase during the upcoming holiday season and it is more than likely that the collectors will cease operations until they are paid.
“We are contemplating a way forward together because it’s affecting our working capital. To work for four months without receiving payments is kinda tough on us because it’s a lot of costs behind these services that we provide,” Puran posited.
For one of the collectors, the monthly operational expenditures is somewhere around $15M.
A letter has been sent to the Communities Ministry, alerting officials about the situation with the objective that these monies will be paid before the ending of 2018.
This information comes at a time when the administrative body at City Hall is facing scrutiny over the alleged mismanagement of funds. There are also some instances where large sums of monies are unaccounted for.
City Hall’s financial woes dates back to many instances where both Puran Brothers and Cevon’s were forced with no other option but to withdraw their services until pending payments were made. Staffers were also dismissed and later rehired in light of this process.
For the past months, there have been talks to implement a fee to the garbage collection routine in Georgetown that is presently done at no cost attached.
