GEORGETOWN’S NOTORIOUS REPUTATION

May 24, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

We hear a lot about Georgetown being stink and dirty. But which parts of Georgetown are stink and dirty?
Which parts of Georgetown have stagnant drains, impassable alleyways and garbage heaps? Which parts?
All of Georgetown have a problem with the alleyways and drains; every single ward in the city! The cleaning of these drains and alleyways is the responsibility of the Mayor and City Council. The council has not been maintaining the integrity of the city’s drainage systems. Yet the blame for the stagnant drains and impassable alleyways which breed droves of mosquitoes is often laid at the feet of the government. That represents a strange form of logic.
The City Council is paid to keep the drains and alleyways clean; yet the government is to be blamed when it fails to do so. This failure is not an overnight story. It has been going on for over twenty years.
There are some parts of the city where the drains and alleyways are kept much cleaner than in other parts. For example while the drains and alleyways in Tiger Bay and Albouystown are not maintained the way they ought to, they are kept in a much better shape than many other areas.
In fact, both the alleyways and drains in these two poorer wards of the city are cleaner than in other parts of Georgetown. This is not because the City Council keeps it that way. It is because the residents come out and keep their areas clean. A great deal of community work is done in Albouystown, and in the case of Tiger Bay, residents voluntarily keep their surroundings clean. A great many areas where the rich live are not as well kept as Tiger Bay and Albouystown.
The next problem is the disposal of garbage at the sides of roadways and on parapets. This is not a problem in most of the wards of the city. In most wards of the city residents not only ensure that they do not dispose of their garbage arbitrarily, but they also try to keep their parapets well manicured and clean.
The bulk of the garbage heaps which have given the City a notorious reputation as a stink and dirty city are to be found near where the markets are and in the commercial districts. And this brings us once again back to the responsibility of City Hall.
The business community pays the highest taxes. In fact many believe they are overtaxed. Many businesses also have to contract private garbage disposal companies to pick up their waste. Many of them do not dump the stuff that is seen on the sides of roadways and on the parapets. This source of the dumping is citizens who transact business within the commercial district. The source of the garbage is also junkies who are paid to dump garbage but who so do indiscriminately.
If there was a proper plan to collect garbage each afternoon from the commercial district; if there was a proper plan to establish more bins around the city and have these bins empty, there would be less dumping.
But there are other problems too. The commercial district is unmanageable because of the large numbers of vendors that descend down there each day, some of whom stay late in the night and others run a virtual twenty four hour shift. These vendors generate a great deal of garbage and this is one of the main problems.
The city by itself can hardly handle the garbage generated by the legitimate businesses, much less to take on that generated by vendors. Where do these vendors dispose of their garbage? They may dispose of it in bins or they may pay the junkies to take it away. The junkies in turn do not take it to any landfill site. They dump it wherever it is convenient to them.
Some business houses also utilize the services of junkies.
This is why this column has insisted for years that the problems in Georgetown cannot be solved unless the problems of littering, illegal vending and squatting are dealt with. All three of these activities generate a great deal of garbage for which the City Council does not receive a dime for having to dispose of it.
Unless these problems are addressed, I am afraid Georgetown will remain a stinking and dirty city until such time as a major epidemic strikes. Only then will action be taken to deal with the problems of illegal vending, squatting and littering which have contributed to Georgetown’s notorious reputation.

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