Following nearly an hour of debate the Mayor and City Council yesterday decided to extend by one month its contracts with five “small garbage contractors.”
During this time the City will continue to hope that Attorney General Basil Williams grants them a legal opinion on the status of their five-year contract with Puran Brothers Disposal Inc and Cevons Waste Management.
Surprisingly both Mayor Ubraj Narine and Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore abstained from the vote. Mentore had argued during the debate that it was council who breached the contracts by failing to pay the contractors for nearly six months.
He argued that the city’s failure to pay acted as a “force majeure” preventing the contractors from providing the contracted services thereby nullifying the contract.
Councillor Gregory Fraser also argued that as a businessman he understands how difficult it is to maintain a business with no funds.
“You can’t be working without pay yet have to pay wages and find other resources. It’s not right,” he argued.
In November 2018 the City owed the garbage contractors in excess of $160 million dollars for services provided over the period June to November 2018. The contractors argued that they were unable to continue and withdrew their services.
It has been two months since the council wrote Williams’ office seeking an opinion but no response has been forthcoming. In the interim the Council has suspended its contract with the two major contractors and at least one Councillor, Chairman of the Finance Committee Oscar Clarke is challenging the contractors to take council to court.
“We had suspended those contracts on legal advice. Our lawyers have said to us that they (Puran and Cevons) breached the contracts,” he stressed, demanding that Cevons and Puran accept this and commit to renegotiation in writing before council engages with them.
He argued that Cevons and Puran have held council to ransom and demanded that they commit themselves to working along with others in the City stressing “If they think they have a case let them take us to court.”
“You will never see them take us to court. We know we have a case against them if they feel the same let them take it to court,” Clarke declared.
Councillor Bishram Kuppen of the PPP/C cautioned council to be careful that they don’t end up paying twice.
“We don’t want a situation where we are paying these small contractors during the life of the contract and then a court decides we have to pay Puran and Cevons too,” he said before voting with 18 other councillors to extend the life of the contracts by one month.
Councillors also directed the administration to begin negotiations with the larger contractors today.
