The Mayor and City Council (M&CC) is currently engaging its lawyers to find the best possible solution to moving forward with the implementation of container fees, Mayor Patricia Chase-Green said yesterday.
“I am not going to give up. We have the law on our side and we will proceed to ensure businesses pay for the streets they occupy,” she asserted.
Last Friday, City Magistrate Annette Singh told the city to withdraw a charge filed against Crown Mining after the company’s attorney Sase Gunraj argued that the charge was bad in law.
The city, under the previous council, had implemented a $25,000 fee for businesses offloading containers parked on the city’s streets.
However, businesses have refused to pay the fee and the Private Sector Commission had sought legal advice to determine if the fee was applicable.
Gunraj, in his advice to the commission, said that the fee was arbitrary and unlawful. He also said that from the City (Markets) Bylaws appended to the Municipal and District Councils Act, the fee is not applicable. The section he quoted states, “All goods or livestock taken from any vessel alongside any market stelling and landed at any other stelling or place within the city shall pay market fees, if they have not been already paid at the entry of the vessel; and any person refusing to pay the fees for goods or livestock so landed shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine of five thousand dollars.”
The section, Gunraj said, has no application to the landing of vessels at private wharves as they are not connected to markets of any kind.
Speaking to Stabroek News yesterday, Chase-Green pointed out that the containers are a hazard to citizens. She cited poor road facilities, traffic congestion and obstruction, the damaging of rails on bridges among issues wrought by containers. As a result of the damage caused to the city infrastructure, the first citizen said, the M&CC was going after the containers and businesses would have to pay.
“…They are refusing to pay $25,000 but they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars seeking legal advice… it’s unbelievable,” Chase-Green stated.
She slammed the business support organisations for wanting to dictate how local and central government operate. “They want to say when we can raise tax and when we cannot because it is going to cut their profit margin. But what is happening to our expenses?” the mayor questioned. She also pointed out that no one from the city instructs businesses how to operate.
She further stated that if the organisations wanted to have a say in the city’s affairs they could have contested the March 18 Local Government Elections and tried to get elected to office.
The Mayor and City Council’s Legal Affairs Committee was to have met yesterday to discuss the way forward as it relates to the container fee. However, the meeting was postponed to a later date.
At the last statutory meeting councillors agreed to review the terms under which the container fee was implemented.
