2013 was a tough year financially for the Linden Municipality, according to IMC Chairman Orrin Gordon.In his inaugural press conference for the year yesterday,Cheap Jerseys Store, Gordon alluded to the issue of the disbanded toll booth, which had been one of the financial mainstays of the municipality and said it was a real hard blow to the council.IMC ChairmanOrrin Gordon“We had been struggling a long time to put our business in order, and we are still struggling with no seeming solution on the horizon, in terms of filling that gap.”To make matters that were already bad even worse Gordon said, the Ministry of Local Government has even gone so far as to stop the collection of fees from out of town vendors.“Now that is totally unfair, because the local vendors (Linden)have to pay a fee to the Council, but now the people at Central Government have mandated that no fees should be collected from the ones who come with their trucks and so on from out of town.BudgetWe have submitted our budget for 2014, but Central Government is saying that it is not complete. But we’re trying to be frugal, because you know in the past our budget would be about a hundred pages or more, but a lot of those pages were almost empty, so we’re trying to be frugal and cut down on all the excess pages, with little information on them.”Gordon said that the budget had a shortfall of some $33 mil, and as such the municipality had requested a grant from the government.Gordon highlighted other issues including the proposal by the Council to give each worker an additional $9,Cheap MLB Jerseys China,000 on their salaries for December, but which was rejected by the Ministry.“I wrote the Minister asking him why, because somebody head in deh on properly.These are workers that are barely making the minimum wage, and after the five percent increase was proposed, we decided that after taking care of our expenses we would use what was left by dividing it up among the workers, now the Ministry said no.”As it relates to works carried out by the Municipality, Gordon posited that it was ‘fair measure’,Wholesale Jerseys China,“We failed in a few areas but we partnered well with our partners,Cheap Jerseys USA, including the people in the community.”He pinpointed the Linden Water project, adding that every effort was made to ensure that residents suffered the least discomfort during the pipe laying process and other rehabilitative works.But Gordon expressed dissatisfaction with some of the roads that were rehabilitated or resurfaced, and which were done so poorly, that they deteriorated soon after. Of particular concern were the roads in the Block 22 area and phase1 B Amelia’s Ward where over $160 mil was reportedly spent. Gordon said that the contractors were advised that a sand seal be put on the roads, but that was not done, so there are already huge potholes in the newly constructed and rehabilitated roads.Continuous Development“We need continuous development, not continuous degradation, Gordon emphasized, pointing out that as an ‘extractive community’,cheap jerseys, it is important that there be commensurate benefits to the Community and its residents, as there would be to the investor,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, based on all the extraction of ore and other products that are taking place.“You would have seen in the newspapers that government would have foregone some US $53mil of levy and so on.And that is the kind of thing that we are talking about. How can we (do that)in an extractive industry, where that sum is not going to come back.These things are not going to come back (bauxite)- they can’t grow back, it’s not renewable. The bauxite when it goes, it leaves a hole, because you have to disturb the surface -that’s an environmental issue.You’re also going to have “fools” in the psyche of residents, so that’s a social issue, that’s also going to be created.”But Gordon said that the issue is not just environmental or social, but also an economic one.“Now as it is, Bosai employs about six hundred persons, now that is an operating cost, it is not developmental. It has a developmental component within, but it is an operating cost.”“We need development in infrastructure and education, we’re talking providing services from the social fallout that may accompany what happens in an extractive industry; therefore some levy ought be put aside not just for the country, but for the community.’(Enid Joaquin)