By Antonio Dey | HGP Nightly News |
Chief Citizen Alfred Mentore has announced plans for the temporary relocation and upgrading of the Georgetown Mayor and City Council Treasury Department to better accommodate rates and taxes payers, as minor rehabilitation works are undertaken at City Hall.
According to Mentore, the relocation is intended to improve efficiency, accessibility, and customer service for residents conducting financial transactions with the municipality, while ensuring continuity of operations during ongoing repairs to the historic City Hall building.
The announcement comes amid public debate over municipal operations, including claims by some contracted garbage disposal services that they have not been paid in a timely manner by the City Council.
Those claims followed a recent engagement between Priya Manickchand, Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, and several garbage contractors. During that meeting, contractors complained of delayed payments and expressed concern about being accused of politically motivated sabotage for irregular refuse collection.
Minister Manickchand subsequently suggested that the Mayor had been reluctant to work collaboratively with central government in restoring the capital city, stating that contractors felt unfairly blamed despite alleging non-payment for extended periods.
Mentore has firmly rejected those assertions, describing them as politically staged and misleading. He maintained that two contractors, Sandip and Timothy Tucker, were delinquent and failed to meet contractual obligations, resulting in numerous complaints from residents about inconsistent garbage collection.
The Chief Citizen said allegations that contractors were owed five or six months’ payments were untrue. He explained that checks with the City Council’s records showed otherwise and confirmed that any outstanding payments owed up to December would be settled before the end of the month.
Mentore stressed that he is not interested in political confrontation, but rather in improving service delivery, strengthening accountability, and advancing Georgetown’s development. He reiterated that the relocation of the Treasury Department forms part of broader efforts to modernise municipal services and ensure a more orderly experience for ratepayers.
