$8B in rates and taxes owed to City Hall – Mayor

The Mayor and City Council of Georgetown on Wednesday disclosed that businesses in Georgetown owe City Hall over $8 billion in rates and taxes.
Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine made this announcement at a press conference on Thursday at his office.

“I am appealing to the public, to the businesses, even residents who owe us millions, come in to us let us deal with these matters,” he said.
The Mayor is urging the defaulters to pay up so that the work of City Hall can be less strenuous while noting that City Hall will be imploring legal actions if businesses do not settle their accounts.
“There are other businesses, huge businesses in the city that owe taxes and not coming to us and we would not take this easily,” he revealed.
Earlier this year, the Mayor and City Council launched a unit to recover some $8.4 billion in rates and taxes owed to the Council but that unit seems not to be working as businesses continue to owe the Council a large sum of money.
In addition, based on a recommendation of the Commission of Inquiry into the City Council earlier this year, the City Treasurer related that the Council will put new measures in place to properly account for financial statements to ensure that accountability, transparency, and integrity are achieved in exchange for payment of taxes and provision of services by the City Council.
With the establishment of a Tender Committee, the Georgetown City Council had intended to come clean with its new accounting mechanisms and procedures but with all these measures being implored, the efforts to get payments from defaulters continues to be a major issue at the Mayor and City Council.