City Hall moves closer to independent waste collection with newly-acquired tractor

The Georgetown Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has made a hugh leap closer to collecting its own solid waste with the acquisition of a new tractor and trailer.

Solid Waste Management Director Walter Narine, in a brief telephone interview with this publication, said the new John Deere tractor and dump trailer were handed to City Hall as part of Government’s 2019 subvention to that municipality. The total cost of the equipment stands at approximately $9 million.
Narine declared that the equipment would help to reduce the monthly expenditure of the City Engineer’s Department as it would be used when the alleyways and drains of the capital city are being desilted.
The Solid Waste Department presently has two tractors while the Engineer’s Department has one, he noted.
Narine reminded that the M&CC intends, in the near future, to cease paying contractors to pick up solid waste around the City, and instead provide this service itself.
Such a move, he said, would save the Council millions per year, as City Hall presently pays $14 million to its two major contractors, Puran Brothers Disposal Services and Cevons’ Waste Management, to provide this service.
“It is our hope that within another two or three years, with the continuous acquisition of these equipment, we would be free of contractors from the Solid Waste Department and the Engineer’s Department,” Narine disclosed.
Georgetown Mayor Ubraj Narine last month revealed that, during a meeting with officials of the Council and the major garbage contractors, a five-year contract which would lower the monthly cost of these services from some $32 million to just over $14 million had been examined. This amendment was made to the existing contract which was signed in 2015, and was made valid until October 2020.
The major solid waste collectors had, on November 25, 2018, withdrawn their services after months of operating without being paid. Immediately thereafter, services were provided by five agencies; namely: Granderson, Trash Tech, Tri Star, C&S Services and Garbage Eaters.
The deadlock between the Council and the major contractors had had a major negative impact on the capital city, as residential and commercial areas were piled high with garbage just a few days after those contractors had withdrawn their services.
As such, both these contractors had met with Communities Minister Ronald Bulkan and officials of the M&CC, and a promise that payment would be made had put an end to the unending saga between collectors and the cash-strapped Council.