A FRIEND of mine who was at the premiere of the Link Show on Friday night brought my attention to the fact that one of the central themes running through the satirical performance was the state of the garbage.
In one skit, I was told, some rats were discussing the situation, wherein foreign diplomats were threatening to cut off their food supply with their constant clean-up campaigns.
This, for me, as funny as my friend says the Link was, is the height of embarrassment. I can think of no other capital municipality in which the

phenomenon of even taking part in – much less initiating and leading – cleanup campaigns has become so widespread, so routine, as to be a subject for public entertainment.

It is clear that the garbage situation in Georgetown has been allowed to escalate beyond any reasonable degree of control. Now, over the past few years, I’ve taken the decision to refrain from commenting in too much detail upon the shamelessness that is going on in the capital city of Guyana.

Last year, almost to the day, I had the occasion to write a column which read in part: “Now I’m aware of the issues surrounding the Georgetown City Council and the politics of it, and I refuse to touch upon that – I’ve said it before and I will say it again — there are certain issues that should transcend partisan political interests, and the potential public health catastrophe that the poor solid waste management of the municipality is is one of them. But this isn’t about the politicians, this is about the people who are turning Georgetown into a dumpsite in the first place. Every single person who disposes of waste in a place that they are not supposed to dispose of it is knowingly contributing to this problem.”

A year on, it is clear that – even if that were not the case at the time – the issue is now far more multifaceted than simply a culture of people throwing garbage anywhere they please. If, for the sake of argument, we suddenly had a culture of responsible individual and corporate citizens dutifully depositing their refuse into their waste receptacles, what would happen in the next step of the process, which I would refer to as the municipal contract?

I rarely watch local newscasts, more out of scheduling than a lack of interest, but I was fortunate enough recently to catch a newscast in which one of the stories was the fact that a garbage truck had paid a visit to Queenstown, a residential ward in the centre of the city, after six weeks. With that considered, I believe it is time I break my relative silence on some specific aspects of my engagement with the council in regard to the quandary in which we now find ourselves.

The report coming of the 2008-2009 Commission of Inquiry was a comprehensive document, offering not just a detailed background into the history of the Council, and outlining its responsibilities and shortcomings, but also offering specific solutions to a multiplicity of issues facing the municipality — from strengthening the internal financial system to creating a debt collection mechanism, to revisiting zoning within the city. There was, for example, an estimation of the daily output of garbage for every single ward of the city, all 67 of them; information that can be used as a baseline for moving forward in crafting a comprehensive refuse disposal plan.

Another major issue is zoning. The Zoning Act of 1946 probably has as much relevance and use today as a British Guiana dollar coin. Take a simple drive along Light Street in Alberttown – an area that is designated as a residential area – and see the amount of trucks and cars and their attendant parts that businesses have along there to see the level of adherence to, and enforcement of, the city’s zoning laws. Zoning was addressed in the report; and next week, as the second in a three-part installment on this issue, I will extract and comment on what the report has to say about zoning in a city that has expanded from an original 3 square miles to the 15 that it is at present.

It is my view that the level of breaching in the zoning act is a key contributory factor to the garbage situation. We cannot expect a garbage collection plan designed for an area populated by ordinary houses to be adequate for an area that has houses, restaurants and mechanic shops.

To date, I challenge anyone to say even thirty percent of the initiatives outlined have even been started, much less institutionalized. Indeed, without going into specific detail, I can offer a brief anecdote of one recommendation coming out of the report which was attempted. In a specific area of the Council’s operations, not only were internal staff members trained to monitor and report on activities, but outside contractors were also involved. Before getting off the ground properly, the initiative was met with what could only be described as concerted non-cooperation, and inevitably it eventually failed.

What is needed to save Georgetown, and the rest of Guyana, from further embarrassment is a concerted will from every single stakeholder — from the citizen to the business person to the municipal administration to the political leadership. This situation with this maddening municipality cannot continue to go on, lest we slide even further into ridicule than where we already are.

In closing, I’d like to say that the Report coming out of the Commission of Inquiry was comprehensive enough to address not just the issue of garbage disposal, but virtually every other facet of city management. Whenever we decide to come together to do something decisive about saving Georgetown, the blueprint would have already been made.