Prudent spending can keep City Hall afloat – Solid Waste Director

City Hall can pay its workers and contractors if there is proper management with prudent spending of the revenues that are collected.

This is according to the Solid Waste Management Director of the Mayor and City Council, Walter Narine, who told the Commission of Inquiry, that there are interventions which can be implemented to ensure that there is an influx of financial resources.
One such instance is the millions of dollars being spent to hire private solid waste collectors when there are employees who can do such. The only problem is the lack of equipment to execute these works.
“Presently, the Solid Waste Department is equipped with the staff who are well trained and willing. However, the equipment that we have [which is] four garbage trucks; out of the four, one is operational. It’s totally inadequate. To manage Georgetown, we would need at least 12 garbage trucks,” said Narine.
One of the recommendations which he would have made to the Council to garner revenues was to implement a licensing fee for garbage trucks and haulers that traverse the city. This was never implemented.
“What I attempted to do was…. you cannot have garbage trucks roaming the streets or any truck hauling garbage in the city and not having it being licensed. The City Council is authorised to licence all vehicles hauling garbage in the city.”
His advice to the Council is to avoid entering debts which might be very hard to pay. According to him, if all revenues and taxes are collected, City Hall’s expenditure can be sustained and the employees can be timely paid.
“Do not go into debts that you will find very, very hard to pay. The money that we garnered for the year was enough to pay the garbage collectors till date. From the figures that I have seen, at these statutory meetings from rates and taxes, markets, abattoir, engineering; had we been prudently spending, we could have paid the garbage collectors fully and salaries. To manage any department, you must have a plan. We need to improve,” he told the Commission.
Representing the Commission, Legal Officer Sherwin Benjamin responded, “You’re not improving because you’re about $12 billion in debt and if we’re spending what we don’t have… then we need to make certain drastic decisions.”
The Council owes over $206 million to the National Insurance Scheme while $70 million is unaccounted for in the restoration funds. Garbage collectors – Cevons Waste Management and Puran Brothers Disposal – also indicated that they were owed a total sum of $150 million.