The delay in handing over new housing schemes by the Ministry of Housing to the Grove/Haslington Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) has left the cash strapped entity in a bind.Over the past few years, the NDC has had to juggle its meagre resources which include a government subvention of $3M annually to ensure that it functions to the satisfaction of residents it serves.And with rate collection hovering about 60 per cent of the projected figure, the local government arm is nearing crisis proportions in terms of its financing.The Grove/Haslington NDC covers approximately a three-mile area spanning from Haslington Extreme South to the west and Chapman/Grove to the east.During the past fours years, three new housing areas have gone up in the area and to date the NDC has been unable to increase its revenue base with the collection of taxes from the new home owners.A source at the Grove/Haslington NDC revealed that the entity has had to process building applications for the new houses and yet they are not in a position to collect the relevant taxes.The new housing areas concerned are Haslington Extreme South, Belfield and Lowlands.The source pointed out that several new housing areas have been handed over by the Ministry of Housing to various NDCs where there is a perception that those area NDCs are closely associated to the ruling party.“We have three new housing areas and not one has been handed over by the Ministry,” the source said.Kaieteur News understands that a letter to this effect was dispatched to Minister of Housing and Water, Irfaan Ali, two weeks ago but no reply has been had so far.Last year the Grove/Haslington NDC had budgeted to collect rates and taxes to the tune of $24M but was only able to garner $12M, which the source said was quite inadequate to effect development works in the area.Should the new housing areas be handed over to the NDC, this will add about $7M to the coffers of the entity,Cheap Jerseys, the NDC chairman said.But as it is, no revenue is coming in as it should and the NDC is owed several millions by persons including prominent land owners.The source said that despite several notices to land owners to pay up their taxes, these defaulters have been ignoring them for years.One prominent family of legal practitioners owes the NDC in excess of $2M over the past three to four years.Another defaulter is the executor of the former hope estate, which owes about $4M plus.According to the source,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, prior to the government take of a part of that estate for housing development a few years ago,Jerseys Wholesale, no rates and taxes were paid.The source said that while interest is to be charged on the outstanding amounts, decisions are taken to waive this as a means of encouraging payment.But while legal action against defaulting ratepayers is an option, for some strange reason this avenue has not been pursued for several years.“We keep sending notices to these people, some of them might come in and some would ignore it,” the source said.Another defaulter is the Regional Administration which owes the NDC large sums for government buildings such as schools and police stations in the community.“Imagine we have to send notices to the region to have these taxes paid. Last year we sent notices to them and to date we are still awaiting the payment,” the source disclosed.No such problems exist with the small rate payers, according to the source.Since these small ratepayers would from time to time have to obtain certain documents from the NDC, in most cases for embassy purposes,Wholesale NHL Jerseys, they are more inclined to meet their commitments to the entity.The situation presently faced by the Grove/Haslington NDC is of such that sometimes it affects the payment of salaries.“There are times when we attend meetings with other councils and are embarrassed when they disclosed their opening and closing balances because of their rate collection compared to ours. For example, there is the Diamond New Scheme which was recently opened and they have already handed it over to the NDC.“We keep wondering why is it the Haslington/Grove and some other NDCs are not benefiting from the new housing development under their control,” the source told this newspaper.Another source of concern is the outdated valuation of property.This newspaper was told that there needs to be a complete revaluation of properties,Cheap Nike NFL Jerseys, since the present rates and taxes collection reflects the values of properties from as far back as 10 years ago.“We would do a valuation on a property and then there would be extension over the years,Cheap Wholesale Jerseys, but we don’t get the