Over 100 city businesses are failing to pay their taxes and according to Mayor, Ubraj Narine, this has indirectly resulted in the buildup of garbage around Georgetown.
Several photos began circulating on social media on Friday morning of overflowing bins throughout the capital city, which saw City Hall coming in for massive backlash.
However, at a press conference today, the Mayor revealed that the overflow was as a result damages to the tyres of the lone tractor owned by the City Council.
A replacement of the tyres is difficult to obtain locally which saw some 18 bins throughout Georgetown being left unattended for the past three days. Further, it is expensive to buy new tractors.
As such, the Mayor lambasted some 144 high-end businesses in Georgetown who are failing to pay their taxes and who owes the city billions.
According to him, City Hall is willing to procure two additional tractors however this is difficult since the finances are unavailable.
“We can do better but only if we get the resources from the taxpayers then we would be able to have two more tractors. There is a list with 144 business entities that due us tax and if these taxes can be paid up to the City Council we will get the additional tractors so that we will be able to do a better job…they owe us billions, these high-end businesses” Narine argued.
As such, the Mayor is urging the businesses to pay up monies owed which will make the work of City Hall less strenuous, since according to Deputy Mayor, Alfred Mentor, the monies for the tractor cannot be obtained from the Communities Ministry.
“This is a team work, this is a job that the rate payers themselves, especially those in the commercial community has to do…we just can’t be going to the religious communities and tapping the central government resources to be able to get these other machineries There are allocation of funds in the subvention that we will use to buy some other machineries but there are other departments that also have needs and we have already allocated funds for those things so it is very important for the business community to play their part,” Mentor explained.
Director of Solid Waste, Walter Narine however, said efforts were being made to have the skipped bins cleared which was expected to be completed by the end of the day.
“As we speak the tyre has been fitted on the tractor and the bins are already being emptied” Narine disclosed.
However, he reiterated the Mayor and Deputy Mayor’s call noting that the City Council is doing its part and as such he implored businesses to do theirs.
“These waste primarily comes from the business community and we are expending a lot of resources and time to clean up wait in the business communities. We have a business truck that traverse the business community every morning, we have street orderly that walks the street to clean up garbage , we out those bins at those locations because before those bins, you had mountains of garbage every single day in front of those businesses and I want to challenge anyone of you to go out to the business community now to examine what receptacle they have to store the waste in, many of them don’t…so the pressure that they are putting on the municipality to deliver is tremendous. We apologise for the inconveniences caused but we will do our best in the future to source additional tyres until better can be done” the Waste Director explained.
