Mayor Hamilton Green is blaming acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba for City Hall’s failure to fully utilise two garbage compactors given to the city.
“The reason why those compactors were not fully utilized again is a result of the obtuse behaviour of the acting Town Clerk. Only two weeks ago, one compactor was removed and placed in a position outside of Bourda Market that disallowed the contractor from discharging his responsibility,” Green said in a statement issued on Wednesday.
The other compactor, he noted, “remains like a green monument in the compound of City Hall for all to see.”
Stabroek News understands that the compactor that was in the compound for the past couple of months was dispatched to the Stabroek Market to alleviate the garbage situation.
Green’s statement followed a clash with Sooba at the City Council’s statutory meeting on Monday, where she resisted a majority vote for the two contracts to be handed back to Cevon’s Waste Manage-ment and Darthmouth Rentals for city garbage collection in light of the “crisis” around the capital.
“Mr. Mayor I am advising you to speak the truth. Under the law, you and the councillors are not the authority to enter into any contract or to continue any contract or cause any confusion and it is advisable that you find out the reason why a decision was taken to acquire the compactors, to put one at Bourda and one at Stabroek,” Sooba said to Green.
“What you should have done is to find out why the trucks are not operable and to find out why the brand new compactor is still in this compound and to also find out who are the people responsible for that,” she later said.
Green maintained that the council is taking no responsibility for the garbage situation and blamed Sooba for the worsening situation.
“The garbage situation is worsening. The accumulation of all types of waste in the Stabroek Market is posing a threat to the well-being of citizens and all who visit from time to time. It has reached crisis proportion… the cause is directly related to the behaviour of the acting Town Clerk and her sponsors. The acting Town Clerk in tones of hostility refused to accepts the advice of technical and professional officers and the decisions of council itself,” he said.
According to the Mayor, at a meeting earlier this month, it was agreed that it would not be in the best interest of the city to discontinue the services of any of the solid waste contractors but Sooba terminated the services of Cevon’s and Darthmouth anyway.
The Mayor also said that when the matter was discussed and the representatives of Cevon’s and Darthmouth were invited to assist the committee, Sooba excused herself from the meeting.
Meanwhile, Deputy Mayor Patricia Chase Green yesterday said that the council will soon be launching a “Don’t drop it, someone’s watching” campaign as the current ‘Pick it up’ campaign is not working. “We are looking to launch another campaign soon as the current one is not working well, she said.
Also, a citizen’s meeting that was supposed to be held yesterday to address the extent of the garbage situation was also rescheduled to next Friday because of a poor turnout. “We weren’t able to get a lot of people to come out at the meeting, so we are going to do more advertising and hold another meeting next Friday,” spokesman for the council Royston King said.
