Dear Editor,
On March 8, 2019, I visited the Mayor and City Council to pay my rates. I noticed a large group of people waiting around on the balcony of City Hall. Upon inquiring, I was told that they were there for a special committee, I think the finance committee, to waive their property rates. I was flabbergasted.
Could it be true that council is waiving property rates in March, the third month of the year? Mr Editor, something must be wrong with this council. On the one hand, the council complains all the time about the low rates paid by property owners, and that finances are inadequate to meet capital and current expenditure. On the other, the council is contributing to this problem by waiving rates. And the council is doing it in March. Is there a law about this? What or who is guiding the council?
More than that, the council has not even presented its budget to the citizens for 2019 but it is already in the business of waiving rates for a selected number of friends. Why is the finance committee allowing this strange behavior to go on? What is the rationale behind this latest move? Unless it is an election ploy, I do not see any economic sense in it.
Businesses making hundreds of millions of dollars are finding it difficult to pay small amounts of monies in rates to the council. This is encouraged by the actors at City Hall.
Apart from the apparent impropriety of it, it is also discriminatory because only a selected few seem to know about this benefit. If the council has an amnesty, then all property owners should be informed by way of the public press. I am aware that from time to time, the council would grant amnesty to those people who cannot pay their rates but this happens late in the year. Now the council is waiving rates even before it brings out its budget for the year. An important question is what studies were done to determine the benefits of such an exercise? Also, how much money does the council stands to gain from this secretive amnesty?
Yours faithfully,
James Thomas
