City gets green light for $3m in monthly pension payments to six employees

Even as City Hall struggles to pay its current list of retired employees the Auditor General has approved more than $14 million in gratuity and more than three million in monthly pension payments for six employees who will retire in 2019.

This addition to the more than $100 million monthly wage bill of the council is likely to drive the entity even further into debt.

The City currently owes the National Insurance Scheme in excess of $206 million, Guyana Revenue Authority in excess of $374 million and the Public Service Credit Union $46,761,458.

Additionally, 44 former employees are yet to receive payments of gratuity, with outstanding amounts being approximately $150 million in total while sums are owed to contractors and suppliers across all programmes of the City Council.

The City has repeatedly found that even with increasing revenues its financial deficit continues to expand as interest on its unmet commitments multiply.

Former Town Clerk Royston King had cited this bankruptcy as the reason why council had not properly tendered for a significant portion of it goods and services over the last three years and a recent Commission of Inquiry into the financial operations of council concluded that even if all rates owed for the year 2018 were paid, the council would not be able to settle its debts, which date back in some cases to 1994. As a consequence, it was recommended that there be some government bailout…tied to certain conditions.