Georgetown : Plans to become fully self-sufficient at garbage disposal may have to be fast-tracked by the Mayor and City Councillors of Georgetown in light of the recent disruption in the disposal rhythm in the South Georgetown area. This notion was emphasized by Public Relations Officer, Royston King, during an interview with this publication. The garbage disposal service in several communities, including areas in North and South Ruimveldt, East La Penitence and Tucville, were recently affected as a result of the unavailability of trucks operated by private waste disposal contractor Cevon’s Waste Management. This resulted in garbage not being picked up in the South Georgetown areas over the last three weeks. According to King reports from the contracted firm is that some of its trucks are under repairs, a situation which resulted in the municipality having to use its own trucks and manpower to work in the area to bring relieve to the affected residents.
Prior to this dilemma the municipality had been collecting garbage in some areas such as Cummingsburg. This was possible King said after the municipality was able to procure four garbage trucks and a fifth which was donated to the municipality by Central Government. The fleet of five trucks, King said, was being used to collect from both North and South Cummingsburg but the efforts were supported by private contractors – Puran Brothers’ Disposal Service and Cevon’s Waste Management. Catering to the entire Cummingsburg area was in fact a strategic move on the part of the municipality, King said, to incrementally reclaim the responsibility of garbage collection in various parts of the city. “While this was intended to be a pilot arrangement it was intended to get us to that state of collecting our own garbage throughout the city,” King asserted.
However the Public Relations Officer admitted that while the maintenance of the municipal trucks is being possible, despite the municipal financial constraint, it certainly is not “as much as we desired but we hope to get there with the opportunity to raise more money or to raise more revenue. We hope to get there where we will have the supportive systems and facilities in place to maintain these trucks and to help us with our solid waste management,” King noted.
For this reason, he disclosed, that the municipality is yet forced to retain the service of private contractors even as he asserted that there is no likelihood that the contractors will withdraw their services from the city at this point. “We have been paying them all along and whatever we owe them is not an amount that would cause them to withdraw their service, King added.
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