What the Mayor and his deputy told me makes Guyana an unfit nation
Kaieteur News – I was walking my dog on the Eve Leary seawall last Friday morning, when the phone rang and the person said: “Do you know who’s talking to you?” On replying that I didn’t, he identified himself. It was a friend of mine, who is now the Deputy Mayor of Georgetown, Alfred Mentore.
As we spoke, my dog bolted from me and I had to cut short the conversation, but, I yelled out, “can I quote you,” and he said yes. The Deputy Mayor called me to offer his reaction to my Friday column on the City Council. He intoned that more than 50 percent of those thousands of buildings that have gone up in Georgetown during the past umpteen years that I referred to in my article do not pay rates and taxes.
I told him I could not believe that. It makes absolutely no sense in a modern nation-state. As he insisted that it is the fact, the dog bolted and I had to go. I left the seawall, drove down Camp Road into Camp Street, turn left into Lamaha Street when the phone rang. It was the Mayor.
Like his deputy, he wanted to talk. I couldn’t because I was driving but I said one thing and he replied with two things. I told him what his deputy said. He corroborated that. He then said he would like to go on Kaieteur Radio with me to explain the reality Mentore painted. Let’s run this scenario with you again so it can stick in your mind and you can act on it.
My Friday column describes the thousands of buildings many of which are humongous that have gone up during the past 10 to fifteen years which should bring in billions annually for City Hall. I argued that given the large number of urban structures that dot the capital of Guyana, City Hall cannot be out of money; on the contrary it should be awash with funds. The Mayor and his deputy are saying that this ambience described by me is misleading. The money from those thousands of buildings isn’t coming in because over 50 percent of those gargantuan, resplendent structures are not paying rates and taxes.
Mentore did say that there is virtually nothing City Hall can do to compel ratepayers to deliver except sue them. He added that successive governments have done nothing to correct this situation. So is this country for real? You construct a big building, you set up your operation in it and you refuse to pay rates and taxes. And life goes on.
What happens then to the thousands of ordinary people who line up from 7am in the morning to pay their rates and taxes at City Hall? My wife insists each year that we must pay on January 2. I went there and the line was endless and I came home. My mother-in-law ran a supermarket at Louisa Row and Hadfield Street. It went out of business 12 years now and she died five years ago. Yet we are paying a whopping sum each year to City Hall.
The word, “insane” can only be the right term to use to describe what the Mayor and his deputy told me. How in the real world can the owners of thousands of buildings in a city refuse to pay rates and taxes and there is nothing the City Council can do? Some pertinent questions arise. These owners do they pay car insurance? Do they pay water and electricity rates? Do they pay their NIS for employees? Do they pay their insurance companies for health and fire coverage? Do they pay VAT to GRA?
I did tell Mentore that what he was describing was surreal. After speaking to both men, a thought crossed my mind. Both of them are APNU councillors. The Mayor did call for a declaration of the March 2020 election based on Mingo’s tabulation. Why these men never requested legislation from their party that was in power for five years?
The PNC’s votes in Georgetown always double those of the PPP’s in national elections. The PNC always wins Georgetown in municipal elections country-wide. In Georgetown lie traditional PNC constituencies. Why the Mayor, his Deputy and PNC councillors have never insisted that this evil is eradicated through legislation? The law can be made in the simple terms. After two years of neglect, the ratepayer is warned. After five years, the ratepayer is taken to a special court which compels him to pay. Three years after not paying, if he still in default, the building is levied on. Tell me please is that not that the law in other countries?