-says Mayor Narine

IN order to curb the garbage situation in the capital city of Georgetown, Mayor Ubraj Narine posits that a national solid waste plan needs to be formulated and implemented.
The mayor during an impromptu press conference on Monday, told media operatives that despite having systems in place to properly dispose of garbage across the city, the Mayor and City Council (M&CC) always finds itself dealing with garbage build-up in some areas, especially around the business hubs.
“This is something unbecoming in the city and you know something, if you are to ask the question or look within the city where the garbage is backed up, it’s within the business sector,” he said.
Mayor Narine added: “Only [in] the business sector you see this garbage piling up. The vendors also, they need to play a role in dealing with how they dispose of their waste.”
The mayor further reiterated that there is a need for a national solid waste plan to address garbage build-up across the city.
“Again, I call on government let us work on a national solid waste management plan.”
He further noted that a study was done by Inter-American Development Bank to develop such a plan to address garbage build-up in several countries.

“The study was done during 2013-2014 by the (IDB), Trinidad, Barbados and Jamaica; those Caribbean countries have implemented it,” he said.
He added that it is now high time that Guyana begin talks to have such a plan implemented.
The mayor also noted that the M&CC recently acquired a number of bins that were strategically placed around the city. However, he said there are many persons and social rejects who do not make use of the bins. According to the mayor, he recently wrote to the Minister of Human Services Vindhya Persaud regarding collaboration to help address the city’s garbage pile-up.
The mayor suggested that a special unit be established to primarily target social rejects.
“My suggestion to the minister is that let us establish a special unit to deal with social rejects in the city and I believe in that special unit with other stakeholders we will get somewhere with the social rejects,” he said. “If you go down to Bourda Market and Fogarty’s and all these other areas, Stabroek Market… it’s a terrible condition and those people need special attention, because of COVID-19 too.” He stressed that a holistic approach is needed to address the situation at hand.
“We have to deal with the problem holistically. If we don’t deal with the problem holistically, we will keep blaming each other,” the mayor added.