Beach renters ‘owe NCC $1 million’

People who rent beach facilities have racked up a $1 million bill with the National Conservation Commission (NCC), the ministry for the agency revealed Wednesday during the Estimates hearings.

The disclosure came as lawmakers examined the Ministry of Environment and National Beautification’s appropriation of $39,690,227, the bulk of which – $24.9 million – is to go towards the NCC.

Responding to questions from lawmakers, NCC manager Ryan Als confirmed the amount owed to the agency was “above the $1 million mark”.

But he said given the current economic challenges, the NCC was being as lenient as possible with its clients and would not be adding any undue pressure for them to pay at this time.

“We encourage persons to pay what is due to the Commission. We do what we can but we are also sensitive to the fact that this is a trying time,” he said, pointing out that the amount owed was prior to the pandemic.

He disclosed that for the past year the NCC has not charged any rent. This, he said, has had a drag on the finances of the NCC.

Als said: “We encourage them, however, if they can, to pay the debts that they owe, which is extremely high as we are also challenged in this COVID environment – our not collecting any rent, having a lot of our hotels which we service, not being able to request the service from us and pay – so we have had a significant drop in revenue because of the COVID.

“Despite that, we still understand that vendors are hurting, they don’t have the luxury of tourists coming and we are very sensitive to that situation. But we do encourage them where they can to pay what they owe over the many years.”

Minister of Environment Adrian Forde promised that a system would be put in place to allow people to catch up on their payments.

“These are not normal times so we are trying to be our brothers’ and sisters’ keeper,” said Forde. (MM)