Payment of wages and salaries to City Council workers is dependent on the collection of taxes from property owners and a loan from the municipality’s bank, Deputy Mayor Robert Williams told the media yesterday.

At a press briefing held at City Hall yesterday, Williams said the municipality hoped the workers could be paid by today. The deputy mayor acknowledged that the due date for payments has long passed and therefore urged property owners to pay their outstanding taxes so the workers could be paid.

He said that the inability of the municipality to make the payment of wages and salary was because of the slow manner in which the municipality received its revenues. According to Williams, “during the year, monies did not come in as they should have and so payments were late.” While there are some workers who were paid; there are other workers who to date are yet to be paid.

Williams said the money to pay these workers is to be garnered from three sources. First, from the collection of taxes from property owners; a sum amounting to $18 million has been collected thus far but is not nearly enough to pay the outstanding wages; second, a loan from the municipality’s bank, which it has been using for over 100 years; and third, the last quarterly payment on all government property which amounts to the sum of $53 million. The money from these three sources will allow the payments to be made in full, Williams said.

Meanwhile, Williams also made mention of the drainage issue.

He stated that all the city’s pumps and sluices have functioned and are still functioning effectively.  Williams reiterated however that the improper disposal of garbage significantly hampers the effective functioning of these drainage mechanisms as plastics and foam in particular contribute greatly to flooding.

Williams further stated that the Minister of Local Government has already received the prepared $2.1B revenue and expenditure budget of the municipality for the year 2009.