WESTERN BUREAU:
COUNCILLOR NOEL Donaldson, Mayor of Montego Bay, say that the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) is not honouring a contract it has with the St. James Parish Council to collect garbage at the Charles Gordon Market in the second city.
His comments came in reference to a huge pile-up of garbage at the market in recent days.
"We presently have a very serious problem at the market in terms of a backlog of garbage," Mr. Donaldson told The Gleaner yesterday. "I believe that NSWMA is not doing enough in terms of providing the levels of coverage in removing garbage on a consistent basis."
ARRANGEMENT NOT FEASIBLE
According to Mayor Donald-son, the St. James Parish Council has overall responsibility for the maintenance of the market but there is a contractual arrangement between the council and NSWMA for the removal of garbage from the market.
"Actually, the Parish Council has to provide a front-end loader to load trucks that are provided by the NSWMA," he explained, while visiting the market yesterday. "I have been here all morning but the NSWMA has not been able to provide the units to have the backlog of garbage cleared away."
Mr. Donaldson said the problem was occurring because the NSWMA was being managed out of Kingston.
"This cannot work," he said. "We have problems that need to be resolved locally in Montego Bay and they are trying to micro-manage everything out of Kingston."
Attempts to contact the NSWMA for a comment yesterday proved futile.
