Georgetown’s Mayor and City Council yesterday announced that residents of Sophia, Liliendaal, Pattensen and Turkeyen are exempted from paying interest on rates accrued up to December of this year.
“This means that all those persons whose properties are valued would only be required to pay the principal to the council,” the municipality’s Public Relations Officer Debra Lewis said in a statement.
The decision was taken at a statutory meeting, held on August 13th, that the Council would collect the arrears and demand for 2019, and not the interest from the residents of Sophia, Liliendaal, Pattensen and Turkeyen areas, which is expected to bring significant financial relief for the residents of these communities. “These areas have not been fully handed over to the Georgetown Municipality by the Central Housing and Planning Authority. Also, the residents of the Sophia area are not recipients of all the services provided by the Council just yet,” the statement added.
In giving the background to the decision, the statement explained that it has been observed that several residents are seeking to regularise their general rates account with the council and this requires them to do a property valuation. When the valuation is done, the rates are often backdated, much to the consternation of residents of the communities.
The statement said the situation was raised at the council’s Difficult Circumstances Committee meeting, with Chair-person Deputy Mayor Alfred Mentore, who sought the intervention of the Finance Committee and subsequently the full Council on behalf of the residents.
It was also noted that Central Government is currently conducting massive infrastructural works, inclusive of building bridges and road rehabilitation, in preparation of handing over Sophia to the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown.
