The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) has decided to once again offer property owners in the city an amnesty on the interest accumulated on property rates owed to the council.
The amnesty, which is to be offered from the 1st to the 30th of September, will offer those who are in arrears with the M&CC an opportunity to clear their debt.
According to Town Clerk Royston King, at its last statutory meeting held on Monday, the council decided to offer residential property owners a 100% amnesty on the interest of the rates they owe to the council.
Commercial and corporate property owners will be offered a 50% to 75% amnesty, dependent on special circumstances. These circumstances “include, but are not limited to the length of time rates have been outstanding, the type of business, location of business and previous regularity of payment,” King explained.
He further noted that those commercial and corporate property owners who wish to take advantage of the amnesty will have to apply to the council. “Each case will be heard by a special committee, which will evaluate their circumstance and having done so decide where on the spectrum of 50% to 75% their amnesty will fall,” he said.
Declaring that he hopes all property owners will make full use of the facility, King explained that the reason for this decision is because the M&CC “understands the economic situation of particular residential property owners, a large percentage of whom are pensioners and other citizens who are unable to bear the burden of paying the interest on their rates.” “This understanding extends to the economic situation as it relates to businesses in the city of Georgetown and the general climate in which they operate,” he added.
The amnesty is expected to allow the council to garner outstanding sums, which amount to hundreds of millions of dollars. These monies, according to the Town Clerk, are needed to provide vital services throughout the city, including garbage collection, street lighting, and health services, among a host of other services.
A previous amnesty offered by the council from 2009 to 2011 netted in excess of $180M, though many business owners did not take advantage of the offer.
In 2009, King, then the council’s Public Relations Officer, explained that city rates account for about 70 percent of the council’s total revenue collection.
