The Guyana Government on Wednesday gave City Hall Gy$215 million to clear its debts and pay workers. The Finance Ministry in a release said President Bharrat Jagdeo intervened and offered a financial bailout to the City Council, to relieve the council of its ongoing financial woes, and to enable the municipality to meet outstanding liabilities, including wages owed to staff and amounts due to garbage collectors for several months.
President Jagdeo, accompanied by Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh; Public Works Minister, Robeson Benn, and Local Government Minister Norman Whittaker, met with a delegation of senior officers from the municipality and received an update on the financial difficulties facing the council.
The president announced that the government will be paying Gy$80 million in rates and taxes to the council immediately. This payment will bring government’s rate payments up to date to the end of the third quarter this year.
In addition, government will be injecting a further Gy$120 million into the municipality to help meet its outstanding liabilities and to accelerate its efforts to keep the city clean. In addition, a further Gy$15 million will be provided by the central government to the city council for the purposes of cleaning up the Le Repentir cemetery, the re lease said. “Taken together, these payments will see government injecting a total of Gy$215 million into the city with immediate effect.”
Furthermore, the president also indicated that the central government is currently spending in excess of Gy$450 million to rehabilitate various roads and streets within the city.
This, he said has the result of enhancing the physical environment of the city considerably but also, by virtue of the fact that these works are being financed by the central government, the council’s financial collections would be available to do other works in the city. Jagdeo emphasised to the city officials attending the meeting the need for more responsible management by the municipality of its finances, especially as it relates to controlling and prioritising its financial outflows.
Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor Robert Williams during an interview with Guyana Times International said several senior officials of the municipality were called to the meeting with President Jagdeo. He said following intense discussions with the president who voiced some concerns, he agreed to release the money to pay wages and salaries for the month of July as well as all contractors (garbage and drainage) are to be paid as a matter of urgency.
“The president met with representatives of the municipality and after discussions concerning the state of the city and the indebtedness to contractors, the payment of salaries agreed to the immediate release of money to take care of workers’ July month salaries and payment outstanding to garbage contractors up to the end of July, and other contractors in the drainage section.”
The municipality, Williams said is grateful to the timely releasing of funds to it. He termed the gesture by the head of state as “a timely grant”. It means therefore that all city council workers and contractors should be paid by Friday. Williams, also the chairman of the municipality’s finance committee said requests have been sent to the commercial banks to speed up the process. “The Finance Minister was present.” Additionally, part of the finances will also be used to install phase two of the electricity connection to the Liliendaal Pump Station. This new facility when installed would allow the station to run on back up whenever there is a power failure there.
