Council queries management of city Solid Waste Dept.

Apr 24, 2019 News

Solid Waste Director, Walter Narine

Even as the Mayor and City Council of Georgetown (M&CC) moves to seek legal advice on the contractual arrangement of two main garbage contractors, questions are being raised over the management of workers under the city Solid Waste Department.
During the statutory meeting held at City Hall yesterday, Solid Waste Director Walter Narine faced a series of queries as it relates to the management of the staff and equipment under the department. The issue was brought to the floor by Councillor Heston Bostwick.
The councillor raised a number of issues over the size of the sanitation workforce under the control of the Solid Waste Department.
Alluding to the mounting issue of garbage collection around the city, Bostwick told the council that it is

A team of M&CC officers in discussion near a garbage pile in the city

interesting to note that the number of sanitation workers has decreased.
“According to my memory and calculation at the last occasion, this chart showed that there were about eighty workers and now it’s about sixty persons on the list… what happened to the rest of them?”
“The officer-in-charge needs to provide the answers as to why the staff is diminishing.”
Bostwick accused the department head of presenting a padded list to the council.
“Is this number accurate or has the list been padded?” He asked.
However, the Solid Waste Director explained that some of the workers may have retired or left the employ of the M&CC. He said he could not speak to the reasons for the staff decrease or increase.
Mayor Ubraj Narine subsequently interjected. He told the council that the officers cannot speak to the hiring and firing of the staff; that would be a question for the Human Resource Department.
“The root of the problem does not lie with the Human Resource Department, the officers are just trees; the root is the Human Resource Department.
Georgetown has long been plagued by the issue of pollution and proper waste disposal, and the M&CC itself has been facing some challenges in this regard.
Only last November, financial strain at City Hall once again forced principal collectors, Puran Brothers and Cevon’s Waste Management, to withdraw their disposal services.
Puran Brothers and Cevon’s Waste Management had said they were owed some $150 million by City Hall. This debt was said to have been outstanding since the second quarter of 2018. Puran Brothers Disposal Service was owed $73 million, while Cevon’s Waste Management was owed $75 million. It was only in March of this year that the debt to those contractors was fully paid off, after Government was again forced to intervene.
The Business Development Supervisor of Cevon’s Waste Management said that the respective sums of money due were disbursed by the Communities Ministry to his company and Puran Brothers Disposal Services.
Meanwhile, M&CC has been dependent on five smaller contractors to assist with garbage disposal. The council had voted to extend the contracts of smaller garbage contractors until March month-end. However, yesterday the council undertook a decision to allow the small contractors to continue to work.

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