Amnesty rakes in over $33M in 2 weeks

City Hall financial woes

…City Hall extends opening hours

Just two weeks after granting a one-month amnesty period to defaulting ratepayers on the accumulated interest on unpaid property rates, the Treasury Department of the Georgetown municipality reported that it has received over $33 million in payments.
8Acting Treasurer John Douglas made the disclosure at Monday’s statutory meeting where he related that a decision has been taken to extend the opening of the Treasury office.
The office would now be opened on Saturdays from 09:00h to 12:00h.
The option of an amnesty was touted so that the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) could accumulate monies to pay staff members for the months of October, November and December. The amnesty period began on November 15 and will end on December 15.
In order to look at ways to broaden and increase the Council’s revenue base, the M&CC decided to formulate a new committee to brainstorm ways of increasing its revenue stream. The ‘Think-Tank Committee’ is made up of members of the Finance Committee and other Councillors who volunteered to deliberate on various ways the Council can either collect monies owed or embark on new revenue-earning initiatives. Sitting on the committee are Councillors Monica Thomas, Akeem Peter, Jameel Rasul, Phillip Smith and James Samuels.
The first meeting of the committee is expected to be on Wednesday.