Garbage collection system in Berbice privatized

Aug 29, 2013 News

By Leon Suseran
The Ministry of Local Government in collaboration with the Region Six Administration, in a bid to solve the growing solid waste disposal problem, has moved to officially privatize the collection of garbage in the Berbice area. This announcement was made by Regional Chairman, David Armogan.
According to Armogan, the initiative began a few months ago and is moving apace in a more organized manner. Concept Solid Waste Disposal is responsible for the Corentyne area while Advance Garbage Disposal Company will be working in the New Amsterdam/East Bank Berbice area.
Prior to this arrangement, village residents burned or buried their waste, while Town residents had garbage collected by their respective Town Councils.
The contractors are using several land fill sites across the Region, including one at Belle View, East Bank Berbice.
Householders will be required to pay $300 per barrel of waste and businesses have been negotiating for “comfortable” rates.
Schools, hospitals and other government agencies, too, are negotiating for cheap rates.
Armogan stated that the government is “very serious” about this programme, “as a way of dealing with the serious solid waste problem we have in the Region.”
The contractors, he added, will be visiting various areas to get people to sign on to the programme and decide on a day for the collection of their garbage.
According to reports, quite a number of businesses have already come on board, however, residents of New Amsterdam are a bit hesitant to utilize the services of the designated company, “since quite a number of householders would have already had a contract with a private individual in the town to pick up their garbage, so it might take some time before they buy-in to this contractor.”
The Chairman noted that in time, former contractors who had services in the Berbice area will be “phased out” to give way to the new contractors.
Laws, he said, will be put in place to penalize citizens of Berbice for the indiscriminate dumping of garbage “and when those laws come into being the fines will be heavy enough to be a deterrent, I think you will really see the effects of the privatization programme.”
It has been observed that persons in the Central Corentyne area have been dumping garbage willy- nilly all around the place, Armogan said.
“This is something we have to pay careful attention to because some of us do not like to pay any money— we want everything free but everything cannot be free in life and the $300 per week is equivalent to a pack of cigarettes.”
One of the problems, too, he stated, is that some contractors, especially the one operating along the Corentyne, do not have proper garbage collection equipment.
“What he is doing presently is merely renting private people’s equipment to do his work, but he will need to own his own equipment if he wants to stay in this business for a long time, otherwise, government may have to take a decision to get a new contractor for that area, if that contractor continues to perform the way he is performing.”
The Chairman added, too, that dump sites in the region are a thing of the past; rather land fill sites with specified cells have been established.
Armogan added that the present landfill site that was formerly used by the N/A M&TC will be a temporary holding site for the new contractors before they move into a permanent site.

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Garbage collection system in Berbice privatized

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