G/T sanitation workers strike as City Council unable to pay retroactive increases, one-off grant

– over $48M needed to offset payment

On Monday, representatives of the Guyana Labour Union (GLU) met with the Georgetown Mayor and City Council’s (GM&CC) Finance Committee to discuss increases for staff who are responsible for cleaning the city within its 15 constituencies.
The GLU workers are expecting to also benefit from the 6.5 per cent retroactive salary increase and the $25,000 one-off cash grant announced by the Central Government for all public servants.

However, City Hall does not have enough funds to make such a hefty payout.
Guyana Times understands that the Town Council collectively owes the workers approximately $34 million in retroactive payment and $14 million in one-off grants.
Given the Council’s financial challenges, it was proposed during the meeting that the municipality pay the workers the one-off grant and a five per cent out of the 6.5 per cent retroactive increase. Unable to meet the demands, the GLU called for its workers to down tools.
In an exclusive interview with this publication, Town Clerk Candace Nelson stated that both parties were unable to resolve the issue amicably.
Some 12 constituencies except Constituency Two (Kitty/Subryanville); Five (Sophia/Liliendaal/Turkeyen) and Six (Cummings Lodge/Turkeyen) will be affected.
Nelson explained that the Council is mostly concerned about the cleanliness of markets, namely the Bourda, Kitty, and La Penitence markets, which are filled with heaps of garbage around the Christmas season.
“We are working on trying to see how we can get staff to do as much as possible but overall, we have our external contractors, they are still picking up garbage so that part is covered but the street orderly they are part of the sitting so you won’t find that gang going through, cleaning the streets,” Nelson stated.
She hinted that if the strike extends beyond the Christmas season, the Council will be forced to engage the Government for a bail-out.

“Unfortunately, the Council is not in a financial position to have any more external contractors. We will have to seek assistance from the Government to see how best we can have persons fill in but to further indebt the Council, I’m not sure we can do that at this time,” she explained.
In August, the newly-elected Mayor of Georgetown, Alfred Mentore, announced that he is unsure of City Hall’s financial status, and has committed to having an audit of the organisation.
The Mayor, during the City Council’s first statutory meeting since the election of new Councillors, blamed his predecessors, the majority of whom were from the A Partnership for National Unit/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) coalition for the current, questionable financial status.
“I am not going to take blame,” Mentore said, adding: “We don’t want to be taking blame for some previous Councillors.”
Claiming that it is an administrative duty to ensure City Hall’s financials are in order, Mentore maintained that he will not take the blame for the local organ’s position.
He related that the Council is ready and willing to outsource the necessary expertise to audit City Hall.

“We want a full audit of this place, we want a full understanding of what is going on…,” Mentore said. Earlier this year, Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo had accused City Hall of several corrupt practices and according to him, there is consideration to have the audits ordered by the Central Government.
Further, he also acknowledged that there are remaining concerns over the selling and leasing of lands in the capital city through the City Council, which is controlled by APNU/PNCR.
There have also been reported cases of obscure transactions involving the writing off or wavering of taxes to businesses arbitrarily without proper records of how amounts are arrived at or how the agreement came about.