PSC, Chamber back appeal but demanding better quality of service
City Hall’s worsening cash crisis has precipitated an urgent appeal to the business community to pay up outstanding rates and taxes in order to place the municipality in a position to improve the quality of its services to the capital.
But in a swift response issued at an impromptu briefing on Tuesday both the Private Sector Commission (PSC) and the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) said that defaulting businesses should heed the appeal but insisted that part of the city’s seemingly worsening cash crisis was attributable to its inability to effectively apply sanctions at its disposal to enforce the collection of rates and taxes and that this was attributable to operational deficiencies within the council. Both private sector organizations also insisted that moves by the municipality to increase rates and taxes collection must be attended by a significant improvement in the quality of services to the capital.
Both PSC Chairman Ramesh Dookhoo and GCCI President Kamal Ramnauth said that their organizations were prepared to meet with City Hall in an effort to try to work through the latest in its unending succession of cash crises. In separate comments on the city’s current dilemma the heads of both organizations declared that while businesses were legally obliged to meet their obligations to the municipality the issue of the quality of the various services being provided could not be overlooked in any discourse with the municipality.
This newspaper learnt earlier this week that preparations are underway for a meeting among members of the council, the committee set up implement the recommendations of the Burrowes Commission and the Private sector. Burrowes told Stabroek Business that the discourse was likely to go well beyond the issue of the payment of rates and taxes. “We want to focus on the issues of transparency and accountability in the context of the right of rates and taxes payers to know how the Council is operating. According to Burrowes while City Hall’s focus over the years has been on revenue collection there was also a need to look at the cost of the services which the city provides. “It is not unlikely that there may be cases in which come services cost as much as 500% more than they really should to be provided.” How to reduce the costs associated with the provision of those services is another matter which the meeting will address, said Burrowes.
City Hall’s appeal to the urban business community to settle what this newspaper understands are millions of dollars in outstanding rates and taxes is taking place against a backdrop of efforts to implement measures designed to improve its operating efficiency recommended in the recent Report of the Commission of Enquiry into the operations of the municipality. Earlier this week, Keith Burrowes, who chaired the Commission of Enquiry and who is also spearheading the team set up to support and monitor the implementation of the recommendations told this newspaper that he was aware of the extent of the crisis and the initiative to implement the recommendations had begun to look in the direction of engaging the private sector in an attempt to garner additional funds for the Council. “The corrective measures that are required to fix the problems affecting the efficient functioning of the municipality require funding. City Hall relies on rates and taxes collection to garner such funding,” Burrowes told Stabroek Business.
The Commission of Enquiry Chairman is already on record as saying that rate and tax payers had a right both to receive an enhanced level of service from City Hall and to monitor the way in which the funds were spent. This week he restated his position that appeals to businesses to pay up outstanding rates and taxes was likely to be attended by calls for improved municipal services. “My position is that this should not be a reason for withholding payments to the city, much of which is long overdue. While the city must be held to account as far as service delivery is concerned businesses also have a corporate responsibility here.”
In what was perhaps his most candid interview with this newspaper so far Burrowes said that human resource deficiencies and the absence of a reliable data base were partially responsible for the volume of outstanding rates and taxes. He said that significantly strengthening the municipality’s “decidedly weak” debt collection unit was one of the important prerequisites to enhancing City Hall’s debt collection capacity. Stabroek Business understands that efforts by City Hall to significantly improve its collection of rates and taxes are being seriously hampered by its inability to generate reliable data on details and the extent of the business community’s liabilities. When Stabroek Business raised this issue with Burrowes earlier this week he conceded that there were “difficulties” with the city’s data base which needed to be “rectified quickly.”
Recent open admissions by other well-placed City Hall officials that confidence in the integrity of its list of creditors could hinder its debt-collection efforts raises questions about the veracity of public statements made by the municipality in recent months regarding efforts to increase its rates and taxes collection in order to support the execution of its services to the capital. One official told Stabroek Business this week that there was never any question of significantly improving the City’s collection record in circumstances where it is unable to generate “an even near accurate list” of what is outstanding. Burrowes himself has raised questions regarding the level of competence of City Hall’s debt-collection unit, pointing out that it lacks critical enforcement capacity including legal resources to deal with what he says is one of the more important functions of the municipality. Additionally, Burrowes says that except City Hall is able to put effective systems in place to enhance financial management and accountability the question arises as to whether an increased flow of funds to the city’s treasury might not simply mean even greater problems of management and accountability.
At last Tuesday’s meeting with private sector umbrella entities GCCI President Kamal Ramnauth told Stabroek Business that he believed that City Hall should move aggressively against delinquents in the business community, the issue of rates and taxes notwithstanding. Ramnauth said that in the final analysis long-outstanding substantial debts to the city meant that the business community itself would be worse off if the quality of municipal services to the city declines further.
Just how much the PSC and the GCCI can do to persuade businesses to honour their obligations to City Hall is debatable since, as Ramnauth pointed out, many of the businesses trading in the commercial capital are not members of the GCCI. Ramnauth said that while the GCCI was prepared to engage City Hall he was not interested in mere formal discourse. “We have to ensure that these meetings are results-oriented and that some positive action flows from them,” he said.
City Hall cash crisis is reportedly seriously undermining its ability to effectively implement its $3billion 2010 budget which includes garbage collection and disposal, clearing and de-silting of drains and canals, road repairs and beautification of Georgetown. Additionally, garbage pileups and clogged waterways continue to precipitate flooding during rainy periods.
Meanwhile, Burrowes told Stabroek Business that there ought not to be an expectation that the quality of service being offered by the municipality will change overnight. “We are currently seeking to put in place some systems which were not previously in place. We are now getting more credible information. Additionally, we have already seen some measure of improvement in our financial system. “Apart from putting these measures in place the municipality will also be moving to take aggressive legal action against defaulters in the period ahead.”
