FOR SEVERAL days last week sections of the Corporate Area were covered in a pall of smoke coming from the Riverton landfill. To further add to the distress from garbage, the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) issued an advisory at a press conference on Thursday that the scheduled collection of garbage had been disrupted because of protests at the Riverton disposal site and the fire burning there.
The smoky basis for the disruption of solid waste removal was an impasse between the NSWMA and the Riverton Meadows Trucking and Disposal Co-operative Society which is a contractor agency in the management of solid waste. The co-operative had been protesting since Tuesday about changes in the terms of their engagement to the NSWMA. Their case may have been legitimate; their methods were not.
Thursday's fire was not the first to burn during a dispute. In September 2003 thousands of tyres were set on fire at the landfill. Alston Stewart, executive chairman of the NSWMA is adamant that last week's fire was deliberately set; and the police have, in fact apprehended four persons in connection with the removal of oil from equipment belonging to the NSWMA, oil which reportedly was used to ignite the landfill fire. Members of the co-operative were adamant that no trucks would be allowed to enter the landfill. Mr. Stewart has been complaining about 'badmanism and unlawful behaviour' affecting the work of the solid waste disposal agency. He also reports that truck crews have been held at gunpoint for hours at various times in the past.
The protest of the co-operative won them a meeting with the Minister of Local Government as they had demanded, if not with the Prime Minister himself, and the revocation of termination letters. To protect garbage collection from extortionism and other kinds of badmanism a police post is to be established at the landfill.
Having retained employment and wrung major concessions from the NSWMA, the co-operative, through its chairman Gerry Gardner, is tendering an apology "to the members of the Kingston and St. Andrew community for the inconvenience caused" and has offered to assist with the clean-up free of cost. Through the haze from the landfill fire we are seeing the outlines of a link-up between outright criminal elements and a legitimate organisation which acts as if it has an unchallengeable right to contract and is prepared to use strong-arm tactics to enforce that right.
We see also a public agency, one among many, hampered in its efforts to run a business-like organisation by being forced to accommodate multiple interests some of which have little concern for efficiency. We are faced with the distinct prospect of armed guards having to accompany garbage trucks to the city's landfill. That's garbage. But that's where we have arrived.
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