Even as a tripartite committee meets to work out the details of City Hall’s container tax, earnings from the interim $5,000 fee have amounted to $12 million for one month.
The City Treasurer’s report for September 2016 states that the city collected $77,024,423 in revenue for the month, $12,395,000 of which were payments for the containers being unloaded in the city.
Attempts by the city to implement what was then a $25,000 fee resulted in clashes with the business community. In June, Town Clerk Royston King had said that businesses unloading containers in the city were already being charged $25,000.
However, City Hall had to withdraw an action filed against a company for payment because it was bad in law. Attorney Sase Gunraj, who represented the company, Crown Mining, had also advised the Private Sector Commission (PSC) that the application of the fee was “arbitrary and unlawful” and could not form the basis of any successful prosecution. Crown Mining and other city businesses had been summoned to court after they were served with letters from the City Council for not paying the fee.
Gunraj argued that the city had filed a charge that was bad in law, while noting that the section on which it was relying to impose the fee did not allow for such. Magistrate Annette Singh upheld the argument and ordered that the case be withdrawn.
The city is now moving to create a by-law which would cover the container fee and enable prosecution of those who refuse to pay.
This initial stages of this process are being facilitated by engagements of a Tripartite Committee made up of the Government of Guyana, the Mayor and Councillors of the City of Georgetown and the PSC. The ongoing discussions includes other initiatives and the institutionalising of a solid partnership to develop and modernise Georgetown.
Though the city has added this new fee to its revenue base the actual revenue being collected has decreased in comparison to 2015. In September 2015, the city collected $470,682,947 in revenue. This large figure was due primarily to an amnesty on rates which was being offered at the time. That amnesty yielded $320 million for the city in its first month.
With the reduction in rate collection the city continues to rack up debt as its recorded expenditure continuously outstrip its recorded income. Last month it spent $161,683,750 a sum more than two times its recorded income.
According to the Treasurer’s report 58% of that sum was spent on wages and salaries.
