By Kenneth Thompson
A Policy Analyst with the Strategy and Policy Unit of State House has disclosed that the Freetown City Council does not want to accept its duty to clean the city “which is one of their primary functions”. Samuel Dilitto Turay says the cleaning committee under the authority of Operation WID received instructions from the State House Chief of Staff to plan a cleaning exercise, of which the council was a part, and confirmed that the committee solicited funds from people in the city some of whom donated equipment and money to facilitate the cleaning exercise. He said: “Our mandate was to organise a one-day cleaning exercise and to ensure that all the garbage gathered for that day was collected and deposited at the specified sites leaving it up to City Council to continue with their general mandate”. He said that by implication, any garbage generated after that day was council’s responsibility to deal with. Turay said part of the reason for the cleaning exercise was for the city to be in a decent state so that a private company, MASADA, could take over the responsibility for cleaning the city in partnership with the Freetown Waste Management Company. But he declined to comment as to why Masada had still not taken over. Cyril Mattia, Public Relations Officer of the Freetown City council confirmed that it was indeed the FCC through the Waste Management Company that was responsible for the cleaning of Freetown, but stressed that “Waste Management is lacking the requisite tools and equipment necessary for the effective cleaning of the city”. He said they were not responsible for the last cleaning exercise but that they only helped the cleaning committee to achieve their goal. Mattia said that contrary to promises made by the cleaning committee, enough materials were not provided for the clear-up process especially the bulldozer and front head loaders which, he said, explained why there was still garbage piled up in some parts of the city. Asked why garbage at the Bomeh dump, Kamara Bar and the dumpsite close to Richard Allen High School had taken over half of the streets to the annoyance of both drivers and commuters, the Acting director of the Freetown Waste Management confirmed that they had no bulldozers. Woode said that they were not informed in time about the cleaning exercise and hence they were not adequately prepared. He confirmed that MASADA only helped during the cleaning and that the onus of cleaning the city rested with his company. he however said that they did not have the necessary equipment to do the job. (C) Politico 24/09/13
