Garbage and attitude

Sep 18, 2012 Editorial

Everywhere one turns one hears the cry, Georgetown is stink; Georgetown is the garbage city in opposition to the Garden City. The media perpetually feature large garbage piles and harsh criticisms of the City Council for not removing these unsightly piles.
This situation did not develop overnight although habits cultivated over the years probably cultivated to the practice of creating garbage piles wherever necessary. For decades people have been discarding their waste through the windows of moving vehicles. Even the ambulatory would drop wrappers and even larger pieces of discarded material on the roads.
But for all the irresponsible disposal of personal waste, the city remained clean because people respected structures; they also took pride in their surroundings. And any waste generated by the households and the municipal markets was quickly disposed of.
The municipal system worked because there was enforcement. Members of the City Constabulary routinely prosecuted litterers. There was more to keeping the city clean. People duly paid their taxes and the fleet of vehicles for the garbage removal all worked.
Indeed the city has grown well beyond its borders as more people move in because of the pull. The major shopping centres are in the city and most of the jobs reside there. The unfortunate thing is that people come with their bad habits and with an absence of enforcement the situation has spread to the alarming proportions it has now reached.
To compound matters, the government through the Ministry of Local Government is simply not allowing the City Council to work independent of outside interference. In most cities the Mayor is the powerhouse; he is beholden only to the people who elect him. In Georgetown, while the Mayor may be a king unto himself, he has no executive power. There are his professional staff who must report to the Ministry of Local Government.
For as long as one can remember, the City Council has been cash strapped but never as impecunious as it has been for the past two years. The council claims that it is not allowed to enhance its revenue earning capacity; the government says that the council is extremely inefficient to the point of allowing its rate payers to owe it so much money that it need not be cash strapped.
More recently, auditors have found that there was widespread corruption within the council. Staff members were enriching themselves at the expense of the council. Here was the suspicion of padded pay sheets, overcharging for specific tasks—in short paying more than it should for jobs done—and actually using council assets for personal gain.
That may explain the sloth in having the garbage piles removed but it does not deal with the attitude that has led to the piles. What is strange is that the wider society sat and watched as their city became tainted.
Talks of Community Watch were nothing but idle chat. There was no watch to prevent the discard of refuse anywhere in the city. In the end everyone took the opportunity to dump garbage anywhere and with impunity. Signs prohibiting people from dumping garbage at certain locations were blatantly ignored.
So people brought their bad habits to the city but the very people become aculturalised when they go to the developed world where the penalty for littering is severe. They simply do not litter; instead they admire the environmentally friendly conditions that exist.
The garbage situation is not unmanageable. What is needed are people bent on keeping the city clean. Too infrequently someone is arrested for littering and even then there are those who induce bribes to escape.
The state talks about close circuit television cameras. These would have easily detected the people dumping garbage in some of the most prominent places. For example, someone has made the Supreme Courtyard a garbage dump. There are security guards there but they have arrested no one. Why have the cameras not been used?
We are not surprised since the very guards failed to prevent the demolition of the fence which represented an architectural masterpiece that had stood for almost a century.

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Garbage and attitude

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