‘We’re prepared to go all the way to CCJ’ – advocate

Despite local courts having not yet ruled on the Parking Meter Project’s legal challenge, advocate Jonathan Yearwood, during a recent interview with Guyana Times International, has said the Movement Against Parking Meters (MAPM) is willing to take the matter all the way to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) to ensure that they are not being exploited by the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) of Georgetown.
Yearwood informed that MAPM has halted its protest at this time, since the matter is presently in the hands of the Court, something he noted that the body has been calling for from the inception.
“MAPM has, after some discussions, decided to put a hold on our protests against City Hall and against the Parking Meter Contract. City Hall has taken the contract to Government for approval, and Government has taken it to cabinet, and cabinet has organised a sub-committee which will look at the Parking Meters Contract.
The sub-committee says they will basically wait until the decision of the court is given. The contract is in court. MAPM has taken that contract to court, and what the Government is actually saying is that they will wait on the outcome of the court case to determine what will happen, so it makes no sense for MAPM to continue a protest which is now in the hands of the court. This is one of the things we’ve asked for from the very beginning,” he informed.
The advocate went on to say, “We will wait until the court makes a decision and then we will decide whether we want to challenge it up to the Guyana Court of Appeal (level). And there again we will, depending on the decision, we will take it up to CCJ”.
The MAPM body began protesting in early February of last year, after M&CC implemented its paid parking system in the capital city.
The parking meter fees were rolled out on January 24. However, as a backlash to the “exorbitant” fees, motorists had mostly stopped parking in the central business district, where several areas were metered.
The M&CC had, on May 13, 2016, entered into a contract with Smart City Solutions (SCS) Inc for parking meters to be implemented in Georgetown, but following heavy objection and intense protest from citizens, Central Government suspended the by-laws of the project. The renegotiated contract with SCS resulted in restructured fees.
The Renegotiation Committee’s report noted that SCS has agreed that the condition for enforcement of paid parking in the city be in conjunction with the parking meter by-laws, despite those by-laws being quashed.
M&CC had first imposed as much as G$200 per hour for parking in the city. However, after much protests and renegotiations, City Hall reached agreement for persons to pay G$150 per hour and G$800 for eight hours of parking in the city. Residents of the city would have been issued with a restricted residential pass for free parking from 17:00h-19:00h Monday to Friday, while parking would have been free on Saturdays.
Advocates have since managed to land the case in the hands of the local court, where it is presently awaiting a ruling.