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Kenroy Gordon, Councillor for the Catadupa Division and Richard Vernon, Mayor of Montego Bay and chairman of the St. James Municipal Corporation
By Kimone Witter
Councillors, who say they have been facing verbal abuse from residents of St. James due to the severe pileup of garbage across several communities, are appealing to WPM Waste Management to upgrade its plan for collection.
At the monthly meeting of the St. James Municipal Corporation last week, councillors chided representatives of the entity for what they said was the slow pace of garbage removal, adding that some locations had not seen trucks for sometime before Hurricane Melissa.
This has resulted in mini-dumps and rodent infestation.
Councillor for the Catadupa Division, Kenroy Gordon says, based on the report of WPM Waste Management to the meeting, it has not made a dent in the collection of garbage across the second city since September.
"I just took a moment and I looked back at the report you sent in September and the report you sent now, and just looked at the backlog - the same number of backlogs technically on the two reports, right? Which means you sending the report that came before Melissa and it's the same report after Melissa," the councillor pointed out, adding that he was expecting an increase in the backlog to justify the extended delay in garbage collection.
"But what I haven't heard from you is what are you doing to change the status quo of the collection?" he questioned WPM.
Mayor of Montego Bay and chairman of the St. James Municipal Corporation, Richard Vernon, said the parish is in a waste management conundrum, with garbage being produced at alarming rates, daily.
"If we continue to ignore the fact that we are not at capacity, then we are living a lie, because we are. This municipality produces approximately 600,000 to a million pounds of garbage daily. It will need upwards of 50 trips per day to cover the space. And the units that we have are doing two trips," he noted.
Mr. Vernon urged WPM to take action to quickly address the issue.
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