City Mayor Hamilton Green and acting Deputy Mayor Patricia Chase-Green yesterday rebuffed signals by Presidential Advisor Gail Teixeira that an Interim Management Committee (IMC) should be set up to help clean garbage-coated Georgetown.
Several areas of the once ‘Garden City’ are now strewn or piled up with commercial and domestic waste and in some areas, residents burn refuse on the parapet because of the erratic arrival times of garbage collection trucks.
City Hall has repeatedly complained that it does not have enough cash to pay contracted garbage collectors, but the municipality only has a limited amount of vehicles that it can deploy. The current state of the city is also blamed on the short opening hours of the Haags Bosch dumping facility at Eccles and the irresponsible behaviour of citizens.
Teixeira, presidential advisor on governance, had said that government would have to set up an IMC to run the affairs of the commercial and administrative capital since it seemed that City Hall was ill equipped to do same.
The government plans to hold local government elections in another year or two. They were last held in 1994.
Green said he too was looking forward to new local government elections. “Now that we have a new parliament, we will hasten to have local government elections. This government has been brutal in the treatment of Georgetown we are hoping this will change,” he told Stabroek News yesterday during a brief telephone interview.
Chase-Green affirmed that the council is not prepared to have an IMC in Georgetown. “My understanding from all councillors is that they’re gonna get a fight for it. We were elected not selected,” she told this newspaper.
According to her, an IMC would not make a difference because it will also face similar difficulties. “…Contractors, trucks not working, cash flow and all of that. What we need is a proper system. Who dumps garbage? It’s the citizens. Who is irresponsible in the way we utilize our space? It’s the citizens. It’s the citizens who are responsible for the disposal of their garbage,” Chase-Green emphasized.
She claimed that the current garbage situation reflected the move to Haags Bosch. “Le Repentir was built and you could’ve gone any hour of the day. Haags Bosch is opened at 7 am and closes at 5 pm so to get there in that space to offload garbage, the last truck has to leave at 4 pm,” she said.
She noted that a night clearance was once in place for the business community but this can no longer be facilitated with the new arrangement, thus resulting in a double pressure for the contractors who are only able to make about 5 to 6 trips to the landfill site a day.
“Also, people are paying the social rejects to have the garbage cleared and they are gonna dump it anywhere. Horse carts are not allowed into the landfill site so these people will dump at any open site,” she said, citing these as other factors that contribute to the pile up of garbage around the city.
“I am appealing to the government, the Ministry of Health, the M&CC [Mayor and City Council], the private sector, to sit down and deal with this matter. It’s not a matter of blame game because the health of the citizens – even the politicians who argue about the council’s incompetence, their health – is at risk. We can make one grand clean up then leave the maintenance to us to see how we go forward from there. We really want to make the situation better but we have to have the involvement of everybody,” Chase-Green argued.
She further appealed to the citizens of Georgetown to keep their garbage until contractors visit their area, which she said will be done although it may not be as scheduled.
She indicated that the Public Relations Department through the M&CC will soon start a massive education campaign in schools and around the city to bring awareness of the effects and strategies that can be used in such matters. “However, we need to understand that garbage on the road is the responsibility of the citizens who discard it,” she reiterated.
Meanwhile, Chase-Green said that the council is currently negotiating with the engineer responsible for Haags Bosch, Walter Willis, to extend opening hours of the site to at least 7 pm. Also, she said, it is looking at other alternatives such as placement of more receptacles around the city.
