A general contracting company is claiming that the Mayor and City Council owes it an estimated $141 million for works, which date back to 2015.
City Hall
XL Engineering Finance Manager Aysha Harrop testified during Monday’s hearing, explaining that the firm was hired by the Town Clerk, Royston King to conduct cleaning and drainage works in Georgetown. After completion of these works, small payments were made, and the outstanding balance is some $135 million with an additional $6 million from another job.
“During the clean-up campaign, we conducted various site cleaning and carting away of debris for the City Council. We also did the cleaning of the cemetery. We were brought on board at the ending of 2015 and it continued until one week after the 50th anniversary in 2016,” Harrop told the CoI.
She added, “It was several different sites. We had different prices come together. The total amounted to about $150 million. We were given many small payments within, but we have approximately $135 million still outstanding. We have gotten some payments.”
No contracts were signed by the two entities for the works, since the Town Clerk would take the contractors to the site on most occasions, stating that it was “emergency works”.
“We did not sign a contract with City Council. Mr King would always take us to the site and stipulate that it is an emergency, so we didn’t have to go through a tender process…That’s how we started on the job.”
Other than these instances whereby works were done for the Council, there was one situation where the Communities Ministry had assigned City Hall to carry a cleaning project on its behalf to the tune of $15 million. Only $9 million was allocated to the company upon completion of these works, Harrop noted.
She indicated that the sum was transferred to the Council for the disbursement to be made, but the Town Clerk told officials of XL Engineering that “he no longer had all of the money available”.
“The monies were sent over to the Mayor and City Council for them to do the distribution. However, Mr King indicated that he no longer had all of the money available, so we were never given the remainder of the contract.”
A letter was sent to the firm by King stating how much money was owed. Despite several efforts to contact the Town Clerk to retrieve these alarming sums, officials of the Council would make excuses.
This $141 million adds to the hundreds of millions of dollars that is owed by the M&CC to companies who have provided services for many months. Over $150 million is outstanding for payments to its major garbage collectors. Payments to the Guyana Revenue Authority (GRA) are also outstanding from 2016 to present.
According to former Councillor Eon Andrews, who testified earlier, if swift interventions must be taken during an emergency, the Councillors are to be notified immediately so that it can be documented.
