Town Clerk of Georgetown Royston King today rejected the possibility of the cash-strapped Council seeking any form of financial assistance from Central Government.
King withheld support for such a move even as the Georgetown Mayor and City Council continues to fall behind in its payment to staff, its payment of utilities and also has huge bills at the Guyana Revenue Authority and the National Insurance Scheme.
The Town Clerk told reporters that despite this reality, he is not in favour of approaching the Central Government for a bailout.
“It is a bad practice and I think we should wean ourselves off the support of Central Government, the City Council is autonomous with enough provisions to raise its income and we should do that,” King said.
He called on Councilors to take action to enforce the collections of specific rates, taxes, and fees, reiterating that there are “a number of things” that the Council can do to raise funds.
Asked specifically about the non-payment of increases in pensions to its pensioners, King explained that the City Treasurer is making arrangements to ensure that pensioners are paid their increases for last year.
He is hopeful that within the next week the council can take care of this situation and the more than 170 pensioners are paid their increases.
He said he is also concerned by the Council’s large wage bill, reminding that with well over 800 employees, the M&CC has a monthly wage bill of $112 million.
He also pointed out that the Council’s revenue on a monthly basis is only $80 million.
King also called for a change in legislation to empower the council to recover outstanding monies.
You must be logged in to post a comment Login