IN view of the government’s focus on maintaining a clean and healthy environment, the Minister within the Ministry of Public Works, Deodat Indar, underscored that strict enforcement measures will soon be implemented to curb the improper disposal of garbage around the capital city.

Minister Indar addressed several business support organisations’ representatives at the Private Sector Commission headquarters last Friday.
Businesses have been found to be one of the most culpable sections of society in the removal of waste materials.
“This is not [just] normal garbage, this is industrial garbage. This is garbage that is construction waste,” the minister pointed out.
Minister Indar who is also the Chairman of the National Enhancement Committee (NEC), said it has come to his attention that these commercial operations are indiscriminately disposing of their garbage by paying vagrants to get rid of the garbage in improper and unhealthy ways.

Minister Indar disclosed that the NEC is obtaining video and photographic evidence of those people breaking the law, stating that this will kick-start a vigorous campaign to charge those who continue to flout the anti-littering regulations.
“I have video and pictures in my phone of them coming out and dumping their garbage in the streets…We’re going to go on a campaign where the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] now will get involved, and the police and everybody else to make sure that we charge people and we deal with them condignly,” the NEC chair asserted.

On August 17, the NEC in collaboration with the private sector and other voluntary organisations will be executing its 9th National Cleanup Exercise.
Several areas will be targeted including the Seawall, the Stabroek Market area, Dennis Street, Linden, Mabaruma, and New Amsterdam.
Also in attendance at the meeting were Georgetown Mayor and City Councillors Don Singh and Steven Jacobs, representatives of the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA), and President of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), Kester Hutson. (DPI)