THE ST. Catherine Parish Council is setting up a database to capture information on owners of business enterprises in the parish.
Administrator of the St. Catherine Parish Council, Franklyn Smith, said the database would help the Council monitor the collection of revenue and to offer a better quality of service to citizens.
"We think as a consequence of our gathering this data, we will get an idea of what we are able to provide in terms of services and to address the concerns of people," Mr. Smith said.
Noting that some business owners are required to comply with certain health regulations, he said that if the Council did not know these persons, it would not know whether they were fulfilling the health requirements.
Mr. Smith said that 25 new recruits, including staff members of the Council, would be trained before embarking on the exercise, which was to be completed in six weeks. The three-day training course, done under the Parish Infrastructure Development Programme (PIDP), ran Friday to Sunday.
The Council also plans to use the information it collects to embark on an "aggressive enforcement of revenue collection". Mr. Smith said that the Council needed to know whether it was collecting the revenue from the issuing of trade licences and to ensure that persons who were supposed to be paying were in fact complying.
He noted that once this was done the level of efficiency at the Council would improve, since it would be in a better position to send out reminders to clients and to issue renewals.
"To do this you need to know where the people are and who the people are," he added.
He said that during the data-gathering exercise, the PC would be handing out application forms to persons to encourage them to become tax-compliant.
The Council will also be placing some of the information garnered on its Web site which is to be established later this month.
