City Hall has small contractors on standby – Solid Waste Director

Garbage service withdrawal

…says operations will not be affected

The major garbage collectors have threatened to pull their services from the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) because of Council’s failure to make them outstanding payments, but it has been revealed that the smaller contractors have been placed on standby in event this services’ withdrawal should materialise.
According to Solid Waste Management Director at the M&CC, Walter Narine, these smaller collectors will commence collecting garbage in Georgetown if Cevon’s Waste Management and Puran Brothers Disposal Incorporated pursue their strike action on Monday.
Among these smaller garbage collectors are Granderson, Trash Tech, Tri Star, C&S Services and Garbage Eaters.
“We would have engaged some smaller contractors and have them ready. On Monday morning, in the case where Puran’s and Cevon’s haven’t started their work, the guys would come out and start collecting garbage,” Narine said on Saturday.
He insisted that garbage collecting operations in the city would not be affected, since the larger garbage collecting contractors have not confirmed that they will pull their services. Those collectors had engaged the Council on Friday, asking for a substantial amount of the money due them in order for them to continue operating.
“We don’t know if they’re going to pull their services or not. They indicated that without receiving a substantial amount of money, they will withdraw. They had a meeting yesterday (Friday), and that did materialise; so I’m waiting on an official letter from them, stating that they will pull their services or not,” he added.
Narine is confident that garbage collection services will continue as per normal, because of improvised mechanisms that Council has enforced, especially during the holiday season.
“In the event that they pull off their services, we would have put mechanisms in place to continue collecting refuse in the city as per normal. We have an obligation to the citizens of Georgetown, so if Puran’s and Cevon’s withdraw for a financial obligation that we did not make, we can’t leave (the city) without refuse collection, especially now in the Christmas season,” Narine declared.
Friday’s negotiations did not end amicably, with a solution to pay outstanding monies due the contractors.
Puran Brothers and Cevon’s Waste Management have both informed media operatives that City Hall owes them in excess of $150 million dating back to the second quarter of 2018.
They were since contemplating to cease operations until receiving payments, especially since they had not been receiving positive answers from their several meetings with Council. For one of these collectors, the monthly operational expenditure is somewhere in the vicinity of $15 million.
Services were withdrawn by these two main collectors in the past pending payments that were owed by City Hall. Some of their staffers were also dismissed, but were later rehired when the monies were made available.

Govt intervention
Cevon’s Waste Management and Puran Brothers Disposal have unitedly called on Friday for Central Government to ‘take the wheel’, as they contend that City Hall is out of its depth and cannot resolve the municipality’s mounting debts to the companies.
They explained that they had withdrawn their services over an outstanding debt of $160 million.
“We wish both the Government of Guyana and the citizens to be assured that a great deal of human and physical resources are invested in discharging our responsibility to the capital,” the companies said in a joint statement. “In that context, we submit that it is both morally and legally wrong to expect that we can continue, over a protracted period of time, to discharge these services without compensation.”
The two companies have also responded to reports that City Hall would contract smaller companies to replace them. They warned of the risk to the entire city should City Hall engage persons with less capacity to collect garbage, replacing them.