New M&CC revenue system to be ready by month end

…as training of staff wraps up

City Hall is seeking to implement a new revenue collection system for vendors to deposit their rental fees which is expected to be ready by the end of September.
Public Relations Officer (PRO) at the Mayor and City Council (M&CC), Debra Lewis, told Guyana Times the training was ongoing to reclassify employees to fit the new positions which would now be available. When the last training sessions are concluded, and the shifts are confirmed, they will be able to commence this innovative operation.
“We’re still in terms of working out the shift system and in terms of the employees because the revenue collectors still have to be classified into issuers and verifiers and so on. We’re still working that out and we’re hoping that by the end of the month, we’ll be able to warrant off,” she said.
The announcement to introduce the new system was made in June after the Council believed that it would improve transparency and accountability of the collection process.
Accounting Manager of the Council, John Douglas, had given a highlight of some of the mechanisms that would be put in place to facilitate the new system.
Currently, revenue collectors from the market section would act on behalf of the Council to manoeuvre around the vendors and apply the charges on behalf of the Council and collect the revenues based on what was owed.
However, the new operations would entail reclassifying the roles of the revenue collectors to cashiers, issuers and verifiers. Cashiers would be present at the booths while the issuers and verifiers would be dispatched into the markets.
“An issuer would come towards a vendor. They would assess the goods that are on the ground and they would write what is called a ‘slip’. The vendor would be given that slip and the vendor is expected to take that slip towards the cashier booth and make his or her payments,” Douglas had explained.
“The verifier comes a little while after on the ground to ensure that the vendor had paid at the cashier booth and the correct amount has been paid for,” he later added.
This system would drive a more efficient procedure of obtaining dues from the vendors. The monies would also be obtained in a fashion that is also safer for persons to deposit their cash. Presently, a new database has also been created specifically for this purpose and it is a 24-hour system.
Lewis informed that one more field test is expected to be conducted after which the new system will be implemented.
“We already have the booth and the mechanisms which is the computer systems. Those are already in place. Everything is in place but it’s just to work out the mode as it relates to the employees. All of them have to be au fait with it so we have to do a test-run which will be part of the training. We took them to the site and that was done sometime last week. We will do another run and by then, we should be ready.”