Georgetown : Minister within the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development, Norman Whittaker expressed the Government’s concerns with regards to the huge build-up of garbage in and around the City and the evident “slumber” on the part of the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) in dealing with the matter, which is a very important aspect of their responsibility to the citizens of the Georgetown municipality.
He explained that at the level of the Ministry, Government has tried time and time again to use its available resources to assist the City Council, which continues to collect rates and taxes.
The Georgetown municipality received a subvention of $20M, the highest amount among the six municipalities.
The Minister said the revenue that is collected is mismanaged as the necessary expenditure controls seem to be sorely lacking.
“If they were able to control employment costs and have systems in place to ensure that we don’t have the high incidence of overtime; we would have had funds available to meet the costs of collection and disposal of garbage in the City,” Minister Whittaker said.
He disclosed that other municipalities have problems with revenue collection as well; noting that very few of them collect 70-80 percent, however, those municipalities he said, work well within their means and have their priorities set right and as such they are able to deliver a better quality of service to citizens.
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