The administration of the capital’s garbage disposal services would appear to be slipping deeper into a dysfunctional state with differences between City Hall and its two biggest garbage disposal service providers seemingly escalating following a meeting between the two sides on Wednesday.
While, for the time being at least, the issue of outstanding payments to the two companies appears to have been placed on the back burner following an intervention by government, the second within a year, to help liquidate a current City Hall debt to the contractors of around $160 million, what now appears to have moved to the top of the agenda is whether or not the Council is prepared to retain their services based on the existing contracts.
Following Wednesday’s meeting at which the two garbage disposal companies were asked to postpone their return to work until January, a report in the Stabroek News of yesterday arising out of a statement from the Council attributed to Finance Committee Chairman Oscar Clarke contained a pronouncement to the effect that the two companies had agreed to resume work in January. The statement also alluded to “a new schedule for the remaining days of 2018” assigning garbage disposal duties to Cevons and Puran Brothers which, sources say, deviate from their substantive contractual arrangements with the Council.
Yesterday morning, however, Stabroek Business was reliably informed that there had been no understanding between the Council and the two waste disposal companies. While this newspaper was unable to reach either of the two CEOs, a usually reliable source told this newspaper that while the issue of adjusting the contract to accommodate “the small contractors” was raised the two companies had said or done nothing to indicate that they would agree.
Following government’s earlier intervention which resulted in an understanding that a partial payment of the outstanding debts to the two companies would be made shortly both companies had indicated their preparedness to return to work immediately.
While both companies have been guarded in their public pronouncements on the issue Stabroek Business understands that at Tuesday’s meeting of the Council, Clarke, a former General Secretary of the People’s National Congress had said that the Council would be putting to the two companies a document for their signature which would address the issue of likely new terms and conditions under which they will provide service.
Stabroek Business understands that at Wednesday’s meeting the Council may have dropped more than a subtle hint of its intention to reduce the size of the contracts awarded to the two companies in order to make room for the inclusion of other service providers. In the past, public dissatisfaction has attended the quality of service provided by replacement waste disposal services when Cevons and Puran’s have been off the job.
Against the backdrop of what now appears to be the increasing uncertainty in the future of the relationship between the Council on the one hand and Cevons and Puran Brothers on the other, there continues to be evident slippage in the efficiency of the city’s garbage disposal service. Overtopping bins and piles of garbage disposed of on corners have become a common occurrence and up to Wednesday evening there was evidence of scores of bins and piles of garbage waiting to be removed in parts of the city including Bourda, Queenstown and Alberttown. With seasonal garbage disposal pressures almost certain to increase in the week it appears that an embattled City Hall is prepared to take the risk of a crisis, going forward.
Having been heavily discredited by the recent Kennard Commission of inquiry and having long been a victim of continually eroding public confidence the municipality’s position on the garbage disposal issue is further compromised by evidence of its inability to meet its financial obligations to the garbage disposal contractors in a timely manner. The Council’s position, the spokesperson told Stabroek Business, appears to be that where there are no funds to meet payments the contractors should be expected to simply continue to work until the situation changes. The source said that a feature of the ongoing saga has been a history of meetings scheduled to discuss payment to the contractors “that are either called off or lead nowhere.”
