By Jeff Trotman
Linden is developing a new garbage disposal site and though property owners in some communities do not pay rates and taxes, the municipality’s Interim Management Committee (IMC) says it is committed to providing essential services to them.
Orrin Gordon, Chairman of the Linden IMC, made the commitment during a press conference on Tuesday, 3rd June. He said property owners at Block 22, central Amelia’s Ward and some areas of Blue Berry Hill do not pay rates and taxes but in some instances the municipality pays more attention to those areas than in some areas in which the residents pay rates and taxes.
“We took a commitment to serve the entire community,” Gordon said.
Garbage
He pointed out that the municipality has a schedule of the days in which domestic garbage should be picked up in the respective wards of the town. Admitting that the municipality defaults sometimes on the schedule, the IMC Chairman said: “We’ve got to do a better job working with the schedule.”
He said that although a contract had been signed between the Region Ten Democratic Council and Cevons to pick up domestic waste and to develop garbage dumping sites, the Linden IMC “is not bothering with Cevons” and is going ahead in developing a garbage disposal site on about eight acres of land above the Kara Kara dyke.
The Linden municipality currently dumps garbage at Dakoura on the Wismar side of the Demerara River but the Dakoura Creek, which is within the watershed in close proximity to the dump site is earmarked to be the sole source of potable water on that side of the river for the next twenty years.
Gordon said the Linden IMC was prompted to relocate the main garbage dump site to Kara Kara because of consideration that over time the Dakoura Creek could be polluted as a result of leaching from the dump site in that watershed.
He said it is costing the municipality about $300,000 to develop the Kara Kara garbage dump and he is grateful for the assistance Bosai Guyana Inc. is giving in this endeavour.
Street lights
The Linden IMC Chairman said the municipality bought 250 street lights for Linden last year and fifty of them were handed over to the Linden Utility Services Cooperative Society Limited (LUSCSL) in October.
According to him, the municipality handed over an additional one hundred lamps to LUSCSL earlier this year to replace those that are not working. He further expressed the view that a number of malfunctioning street lights can be repaired.
The IMC Chairman said he is concerned that the government recently spent $9M to install street lights on the Linden/Soesdyke Highway entrance – along Amelia’s Ward – to the town and along the Sir David Rose Avenue but no lights were given to the municipality.
He said that he is unhappy that no definitive statement has been made on which agency will be saddled with the bill for those lights and he fears that burden would be placed on the Linden IMC.
Stating that about twenty five to thirty of those recently installed lights are not working, Gordon stressed that many of them malfunction in that they light up during the day instead of during the darkness of night.
He also said that while Prime Minister, Samuel Hinds, says that the use of electricity is increasing in Linden, the Linden Electricity Company Inc (LECI) has pointed to the overall reduction of electricity usage within the town.
LECI purchases electricity, which is generated by Bosai for its Mackenzie bauxite processing plant and apart from being the sole supplier of domestic electricity on the east bank of Linden, LECI sells electricity to LUSCSL, which in turn is the sole supplier of electricity on the west bank of Linden.
