In 2018, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) of Georgetown will receive a $200 million subvention from the Communities Ministry and in order to minimise its garbage collection bill, the municipality is planning to utilise the funds to purchase two new garbage trucks.
Currently, City Hall pays approximately $90 million per month in garbage collection fees to its two major contractors, Puran Bros Disposal Service and Cevons Waste Management Inc.
“In our 2018 budget, the $200 million that was given to us by the Government will
Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase Green
be busted to purchase two new garbage trucks. Until those trucks are here, I don’t think we have the capacity to clear effectively the areas that the Council controls and we are still looking at that,” Mayor Patricia Chase Green noted.
Puran Brothers Disposal and Cevons Waste Management withdrew their services on July 30, 2017, as City Hall’s debts had risen to the multimillion-dollar range. According to the companies, the issue of non-payment has been a long-standing one, with many debts going as far back as 2015.
However, they have since resumed collection after the municipality approached Central Government through the Communities Ministry for a bailout of $475,635, 245 to settle the city’s debt to Puran Brothers, Cevons, and another company after they would have pulled their services owing to non-payment. The bailout was granted, and Central Government decided to pick up the tab until December 31, after which the M&CC would step in.
When asked whether the administration has begun engaging the contractors, the Mayor explained that they were preparing for that meeting sometime soon.
“We want to be quite clear with them when we meet with them how we move forward in 2018; the Government takes us up to the 31st December … even at the end of 31st of December, the holidays don’t end there because you have 12 nights coming up and the containers go down the streets and there is a triple increase in garbage and so we got to engage them, but we will do it sometime before the year is over, so we will have a smooth transition for 2018,” she further stated.
Solid Waste Director Walter Narine had earlier stated that the two contractors would come back with reduced responsibilities. He said that the new arrangement would see each contractor being paid $10 million per month for their services as compared to the previous range of $43 million to $45 million per month.
However, Chase Green noted that the Council did not have the capacity to embark on such an undertaking.
“I don’t want to say we are going to take back an area and after the first week our truck, tractor-trailer cannot make the pick-up even though it’s once a week and the garbage will have to pile up. We were experiencing that before Cevons came back to work with us through the contract of the Government. So, we are trying to fine-tune all those areas,” she said.
On September 1, the M&CC implemented fees for commercial waste collection. Small business operators are required to pay $5000 per month while medium businesses will contend with $8000 per month. However, large business operators across Georgetown are required to pay the most significant figure of $12,000 per month for their waste collection.
The Solid Waste Director had told the Council that while the originally approved fees for commercial garbage collection were $5000, $10,000 and $15,000 – the last two were reduced to $8000 and $12,000 after consultations.
