By Sharmain CornetteDefaulting rate payers have not been coming forward to make their payments to City Hall, a state of affairs which now sees the municipality reaching out to some Government and business entities to pay-up their third quarter instalments.According to Public Relations Officer, Royston King, aside from the municipality’s indebtedness to waste disposal contractors, the city entity is still saddled with other financial obligations such as utilities and other overhead expenditure.As such, he noted the sustained operation of the municipality is completely dependent on the willingness of tax payers to honour their civic responsibility.“People are just not coming forward to pay-up their rates and taxes as we had anticipated and this is a matter of concern to us,” King related.The municipality currently owes waste disposal contractors – Cevons Waste Management Inc. and Puran Brothers Waste Disposal Service – about $75M. This amount, according to King, represents monies owed to the contractors for the past three months.But despite the current challenge, King disclosed that residents of the city have been very co-operative and have been refraining from dumping their refuse on parapets and pavements as well as in each other’s yard.Since the onset of the dilemma, the municipality has been urging residents not to put out their refuse receptacles as they would not be picked up as usual. In addition, residents were advised that they could transport their refuse themselves to the Le Repentir Dumpsite.According to King, the council’s consideration of having the municipality use its own resources to undertake the task of garbage disposal in the city is becoming more financially feasible and could very well become a reality.Currently, the municipality has engaged cleansing workers attached to the Solid Waste Management Department to keep sections of Central Georgetown in an acceptable state, King said.“With the aid of the cleansing workers we have managed to keep areas such as Robb and Regent Streets in a good, clean condition as well as the Stabroek area.”Last week, King had disclosed that the municipality was reviewing its contractual arrangement with garbage disposal contractors in wake of the decision made by the contractors to withdraw their service from the city entity. However, he did note that currently the alternative waste disposal plan will not be extended to the outer reaches of the city.Currently, the municipality’s capacity is severely impaired, according to Deputy Mayor, Robert Williams,wholesale jerseys, due to the fact that it is being starved of more than $66M which it should have garnered from commercial operations in the city over the past three years.And this dilemma he had disclosed is likely to continue until the new Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) Valuation Roll is put into place.Williams disclosed that following a survey carried out by the municipality in the areas bordered by Vlissengen Road, Water Street,Cheap NFL Jerseys Authentic, North Road and D’Urban Street, it was discovered that a number of properties have been transformed to commercial operations.“These properties are recorded in our database as residences,Cheap Jerseys USA, but are now being used as businesses, be it auto dealers, restaurants, salons, all sorts of things. So they are recorded by us as having to pay 40 percent of their assessed value, but are in fact businesses that should be paying 250 percent, and this has been happening over four to five years,” Williams divulged.According to the Deputy Mayor, in such areas, the municipality should have been collecting some $18M per year but is only in receipt, if it is paid at all,Wholesale Jerseys Cheap, of a mere $5M per year.“When you assess on average going back three to four years,Wholesale Authentic Jerseys, it is over $66M we should have garnered for commercial operations in these areas but we are only getting $24M under the base document we have which is residential,Cheap NFL Jerseys,” Williams opined.