License registration and transfers date would not be extended- Sattaur

Commissioner- General of the Guyana Revenue Authority, Khurshid Sattaur, said the date for acquiring licenses and registrations will not be further extended, and the police will charge persons who cannot produce the appropriate documents.
But even as the commissioner- general stands resolutely against extending the date, residents in Berbice are complaining of facing difficulties in renewing their registrations.
This newspaper was told that persons living in Berbice are forced to travel several days consecutively as a result of delays GRA office.
According to a source at the GRA, the sloth in dealing with the renewal of registrations and transfers of documents for customers is as a result of 12 employees of the License and Revenue Office not having their employment contracts renewed.
A source from GRA confirmed this; and, to compound the situation, more than 300 queries from other areas were sent to the Georgetown offices to be dealt with and finalized.
One customer told Guyana Times that, in the past three years, the traffic department in B Division had handled all documents with regards to transfers and registrations of vehicles; but since GRA took over, the system has ‘ gone haywire.’ However, an official from GRA told this news paper that the traffic department in the B Division did not submit proper records to GRA, hence their being unable to handle queries.
This newspaper was also told that the Georgetown office has Khurshid Sattaur stopped accepting queries from Berbice, since the July 13 deadline for completing all licensing and registration has passed.
The source said that, because of the staff shortage situation, there are long lines at the Georgetown office; and in some cases, after waiting for hours; customers are told that there are no records for them.
However, Sattaur, in a telephone interview with Guyana Times, said the contracts of the workers were not renewed since they were not performing as expected.
The commissioner- general said those persons whose contracts were not renewed were not fulltime employees, and the GRA was not obligated to renew their contracts.
With regards to the more than 300 queries being sent to the office in Georgetown, Sattaur said: “ What is that, compared to over 75,000 here in Georgetown?” he said that over 70,000 licenses were sold, and those who waited until the last minute to renew theirs were to be blamed for the long lines.
He said that the officers whose contracts have not been renewed were attempting to pressure him to renew their contracts by approaching the media.
Meanwhile, more than one customer raised concerns that the police will charge owners for not having the proper documentation for their vehicles.
When Guyana Times had visited the office before the due date was extended, one customer who gave his name only as Shaim had said that the officers were selecting customers who they wanted to assist.At the time, the customer had displayed a card to Guyana Times that was numbered ‘4’, but, despite this, customers with numbers between 25 and 40 were being assisted before him.


(Guyana Times July 18,2010)