Environmental Health looks for garbage fees
(CNS): Despite reports that garbage fees are notoriously difficult to collect the Department of Environmental Health has issued a reminder to home and business owners that the fees will be due by 31 January 2010. Fees are due twice yearly, in January and July for 6 month periods, but owners do have the option of making a full single payment in January and the department also said that payment plan arrangements can also be made to help people meet their obligation. Garbage fees are prescribed in accordance with the Public Health (Garbage and Refuse Disposal) (Amendment) Regulations, 2002.
“Customers also have the convenience of paying garbage fees by debit or credit cards on Grand Cayman.,” said Director Roydell Carter. “Of course we accept cash and cheques too—the DEH aims to make paying user-friendly!”
To avoid invoice delivery delays, the public is further urged to contact DEH on 949-6696 to update mailing addresses. Customers who do not receive bills by January 15, 2010 are advised to contact DEH immediately. The DEH said that it appreciates the cooperation of residents who regularly pay their fees in a timely manner, and thanks those other civic-minded individuals who are currently in the process of paying their fees.
Given the shortages in government coffers and recent delays in garbage collections owing to problems with resources in the DEH the fees will be needed more than ever this year.
The fees can be paid in person at Department of Environmental Health, in the Cayman Islands Environmental Centre, 580 North Sound Road, between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday to Friday or at any Grand Cayman post office and at the District Administration Office in Cayman Brac. Customers can also post payment to the Department of Environmental Health, P.O. Box 1820, Grand Cayman KY1-1109.
Category: Local News
Well, how about this – if the fees aren’t paid, the staff aren’t paid, routes are cut back, staff are cut back, and frequency of collections is cut back
AND everyone should pay their bills – Caymanian or non Caymanian!!
You dont know me so don’t act like you do, Yes I have very good damn job and not everyone is fortunate. Why I’m I even here arguing with any of you low life people who try to down put people I was expressing my feelings and i will keep doing it until i die, i am a caymanian and im proud of it no matter how you PEOPLE try to make this beautiful island not everyone are alike hahahaha, im better than that,
aslong as i have the Good Lord on my side I need no more.
peace
Happy New Years!!! 🙂
Geez, where to start??? It’s your attitude, your smarts, and your personality that determines the person that you are or can be; certainly not your looks. Looks are fleeting… Best of luck in 2010!
Curious what the good job u got is? Clearly it don’t nede u to know granma or punkchewashun and speeling.
I suggest you add some basic english language writing and gammar lessons to your wish list – a well presented arguement comes across a lot less ignorant than your rant!
I am all for supporting my Caymanian people – sadly for every good, rational arguement on this site there are dozens of others like yours that set back the process considerably.
Thank you for proving my point. Your boss is an idiot!
"Take what you get andgive nothing back " is clearly the attitude of some people in this country (and has obviously been adopted by a certain class of Caymanians, and perpetuated by certain polititians over the years) but it is absolutely not the culture of generations of Caymanians who worked very hard for everything they got.
The problem here is that the DEH’s collections are such a mess that they don’t know who has and hasn’t paid, and this has been the case for endless years (although some strides have been made to correct the situation over the last couple of years). As an example, we have religiously paid our garbage bill every year for the past twenty plus years, regardless of the fact that we’ve seldom received an invoice. A couple of years ago we were billed for "outstanding" invoices for two or three odd years, going back somewhat, where they claimed to not have any record of payment. We dug around and found proof of payment, forwarded it to the DEH (at least four times so far) but up until now, we are still being harrassed for "outstanding payments" because someone there can’t be bothered to get off their behind and amend the records. Incompetence is obviously a big part of the problem!
Incompetence I can live with. But my question would be how do they account for the money that was obviously paid but not applied to your block and parcel number?
All it takes is one incompetent, and poorly educated, person to figure out that if they pocket $100 cash and then "uncheck" any block and parcel from the paid list that the books will balance.
What we need is an audit of all block and parcel numbers showing the garbage fees paid for the last ten years. This audit should then be published for all and sundry to see.
My guess would be that the "owner" of the block and parcel with unpaid garbage fees will feature prominently on some politician’s list of supporters.
I am puzzled as to how the DOEH can justify charging for a service it does not provide. Before Ezzard introduced garbage fees we used to have three collections a week: since, we are lucky to get two a month!
You people need to shut the heck up! It’s people like you who make caymanians live hard, maybe you should tell them to increase the PAY, increasing bills & different sh*t isnt helping us,
pathetic Iwish all you foreigners would get the heck out of this island!
And shut up unless you have something good to say
You foreigners want to come in our island call us names and fail to realize its our ISLANDS
Anyway may god be with you bad mind folks
I pray for my friends&family and the people who have to work hard for what they have today.
In summary: Foreigners please go away and let us not pay our bills in peace.
You don’t "sound" anything like a beauty!
Sound much more like ungrateful and blaming…qualities that make one NOT beautiful.
Besides, if ALL expats left these islands then how do you expect anyone would get more of anything?
And i’m a born and bred caymanian.one who has travelled extensivley and even lived abroad…one who "appreciates" people based not solely on where thay "happen" to be born (something none of us have ANY control of)
This is by far the best posting I have read on here in the whole of 2009! Very refreshing to read.
You must certainly be referring to your outer beauty, not your inner one. Pray harder and hope for money to grow on trees. 😉
Your absolutely right of course. If everyone was as dumb and petty as you than you could get a better job and make the same as everyone else! Or if all the smart people would just leave because you wanted them to then you would have an easier life. Not going to happen so get used to being the kind of person no one wants around. P.S. Its not yours if you can’t afford it. At least you have your beauty!
Why are they asking for garbage fees, when the garbage collection schedule is still not back to normal…..get real people!!
Thats right! Force the people of Cayman to be honest. There is no other way! Take what you can. Give nothing back. Caymans so called Christian culture. You can lie but you can’t hide the truth.
Start publishing the names in the newspaper who don’t pay
What about doing something more sensible like implementing a small percent charge on all or certain items bought at the supermarket or something? For example, 0.0025% on a loaf of bread; which equates to 0.008725 per loaf and for a thousand loafs that’s $8.73. Lets then say that this amount is per week, therefore, for a year or 52 weeks that is $453.70.
I don’t know….just be creative to solve this very important problem. If it is done this way then there would be no need to seek individual monies from households. What do you all think? If I am not mistaken, aren’t these sort of tactics already applied to certain industries, for example, battery disposal or paying an environmental impact fee when renting a vehicle?
I totally agree with this suggestion….and to know that the fee is already so small for the amount of times your garbage is collected during the year….
Double the fees every month until they are paid and allow them to be charged against the properties to which they relate.
12 months in arrears? That would be $204,800 please!
Take what you can and give nothing back. Cayman culture at its best. If the new younger Caymanians can’t change this than there will be no more Grand Cayman for them. It will be Grand Collateral. The future will be there just to pay for the past. And NO ONE will trust a Caymanian ever!
ATTACH THE GARBAGE FEES TO THE WATER FEES! If you don’t pay the garbage fees, cut off the people’s water. We all have to abide by the rules and pay our bills. Enough is enough. Some people go around claiming they don’t have money for the basics, but yet you see them with the hair and nails done or buying drinks at the bar. Same goes for all those people that want to live for free in those temporary trailers. Get a job! Unless you are fully disabled or very old then you can get a job. And having ten kids by ten different men is no excuse!
A good suggestion. This is what is done in most cities in the US. It’s a few bucks added to the monthly utility bill. Easy and simple to collect.
Since the DEH makes no effort to collect from thousands of households which have Never paid, I may not pay this year. It will be the first time in almost 20 years. I am sick of the incompetence and paying for things that others refuse to pay for and can get for free. My turn.
Now if they behaved like a business and charged everyone (exempting the needy) in a fair anmd effective manner (say $12.50 on everyones CUC bill every month with CUC being given a little for sdealing with admin) then I would have to pay, and so would everyone else.
Oh wait, that makes too much sense, and Caymanians AND Expats would both have to pay. That cannot work…
Signed, a Caymanian who is sick and tired of Caymanians too often not being prepared to pay their way.
Expats pay-it’s Caymanians who don’t. Sadly, that’s the statistics.
Is Roydel blind or deaf, or both? Big Mac says NO MORE GARBAGE FEES!
http://www.caycompass.com/cgi-bin/CFPnews.cgi?ID=10385503
"A two–per cent increase across the board on import duties would increase government revenues between $3.5 million and $3.75 million annually, based on the average amount of import duty collected over the past three years.
To help offset the increase in import duties, Mr. Bush said garbage collection fees would be eliminated."
Roydel is neither blind or deaf, I bet no one in Macks Government advised him that the fees were eliminated in favour of a 1000 dollar tax on used vehicles or maybe like everything else he just forgot..
Or then again maybe Mack said so but did,nt say so and is only being quoted by people who like to misquote him.
The Government is going to make so much money from scrap metal sales that Roydel also forgot not to give it away.
I also read the article about garbage fees being eliminated once the duty increase became effective and I am confused as to why I have just received a bill indicating that garbage fees are now due.