-after Jagdeo pledges $50M
By Tiffny Rhodius
Garbage collectors yesterday called off a month-and-a-half long strike after President Bharrat Jagdeo offered them “substantial payment” to settle the debt owed by the city.
Georgetown Mayor Hamilton Green later said while the intervention was welcomed it was “a repeat of the hegemony of the government.”
Office of the President Press Officer Kwame McCoy confirmed that Jagdeo met with the city’s three contracted collectors earlier yesterday. “He met with them and they will resume work tomorrow [today],” McCoy said. Puran Brothers, Cevon’s Waste Management and Crawler and Wheelers are the collectors contracted by the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) to collect garbage. When asked the sum the President was providing, McCoy said, “It would appear as though agreement on the arrangement reached is sufficient for them to return to work.” This newspaper learnt, however, that the figure was roughly $50M.
Puran’s and Cevon’s last evening confirmed that they had met with the government and further said that they will resume collection today. “He [the president] agreed on a substantial payment and we will resume duties tomorrow [today],” Morse Archer, the CEO of Cevon’s said yesterday via the telephone. The manager of Puran’s, who did not want to be named, also said that his company will resume working the normal areas around the city from today. “We are urging residents to put out their receptacles,” he said. According to the Puran’s manager, the president has “allocated some funds and it has to be shared among the three companies. Payment has to be worked out by the Local Government Minister.”
Efforts to contact Local Government Minister Kellawan Lall yesterday were unsuccessful.
The contractors suspended their services to the city on June 21, after the M&CC failed to come up with the $75M in outstanding arrears. Mayor Green, contacted last evening, said he had learnt of the president’s intervention unofficially. “I heard of it quite unofficially. I hope it’s not from tax payers’ money. We welcome it but this kind of behaviour is part of the government’s imperialist approach.”
Green compared the move by the President to a person who “throws a man overboard in the deep end of the river and then comes running with life jackets and cameras to save him”. Earlier, at a press conference held at City Hall yesterday, Green had lamented how the government had taken away the Council’s capability over the years. “The government is the most delinquent of taxpayers,” he further added. This, he said, set a bad example to the rest of the citizens. When asked whether the municipality would take legal action against the government to get them to pay their taxes, Green added, “I don’t know that it’ll make sense. I don’t know that we can take the government to court.”
Green last evening urged the government to “do the proper thing” and pay their taxes.
At a recent news conference, Jagdeo said his administration has poured billions of dollars into the management of the city and had no option but to continue to help the “visionless” council. “We will have to continue to help… But at the same time we are just tired of this sort of nitpicking and lack of focus,” he noted.
Jagdeo also said that in the absence of local government elections until a likely 2012 date, the residents of the city will unfortunately have to bear with the M&CC for another year or more.
Meanwhile, the Director of the municipality’s Solid Waste Department Hubert Urling also said that he had no official word of the deal between the president and the contractors but knew unofficially of the meeting. Urling is of the view that with the return of the collectors, the municipality will be able to tackle the dumps that have shown up alongside the roads since the suspension of collection. However, focus, he said, remains on building the capacity of the Solid Waste Department to be able to collect garbage from some areas along with the regular collectors one day.
At the press conference, Urling had noted that his department, in partnership with the City Engineer’s Department and recently the Private Sector Commission and Local Government and Works ministries, has been working towards the removal of heaps which have been popping up more frequently recently. As a result of the strike, the municipality had assumed collection on a fortnightly basis. However, it was unable to collect garbage from every area in the city and as a result persons resorted to dumping on the roadside, alleyways and empty lots across the city.