Amidst calls for local government elections to be held before the end of this year, the Mayor and City Council is hoping to cut its budget from $2.5B to $1.6B.
Deputy Mayor Robert Williams told Stabroek News that the council met on Wednesday and is examining a number of areas where they will be forced to cut most of the expenditure and, in keeping with this, more attention is being paid to employment costs.
Williams said the council spends more than $800M per year on employment and with the move to cut its budget, the number of staff will be affected.
Meanwhile the council has agreed to write government seeking an urgent meeting to bring a number of issues to its attention.
During their recent dispute with the Guyana Power and Light the council had said that even if it collected all of its taxes it would not be able to cover all of its expenses. So, Williams said, this is one matter that is bound to top the list of issues to be raised with the government, once the meeting is agreed to.
“Since 1998 we were (not) granted an increase in taxes paid by residents and so we are hoping that through this meeting we garner some agreement from the government to raise our taxes,” Williams said.
He said the council is also hoping to win government’s consent to increase the current $50M subvention it gives to the council.
The M&CC said that it will propose that this sum be increased to $300M in order to meet its capital expenditure.
Additionally, the council hopes to lobby government for a yearly subvention that will allow it to retain complete management of its municipal day care centres.
Williams said the council is finding it increasingly expensive to maintain these centres on its own and could use some government assistance in this regard.
“If we don’t get the assistance then sooner or later we will be forced to divest or work in partnership with a non-governmental organisation and the private sector if we want to keep the day cares open and functioning,” he said.
Williams said only 37 of the 900 parents who have children attending the day care centres, are employed by City Hall, while the others are government employees. “So we hope to use this to build a justified case to convince government that we do in fact need a subvention of this nature,” he said.
The council is yet to make public the other details of its restructuring programme which outlines the other areas where they propose to cut costs. (Heppilena Ferguson)
