By Bampia James Bundu
Officials of the Freetown City Council have defied the instructions of the Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Diana Konomanyi to handover the management of the Freetown Waste Management Company (FWMC) to a company called MASADA International.
Speaking at a news conference at the FWMC conference hall, Councillor Ahmed Samba Turay of Ward 368 said the council would not hand over the operations of FWMC to anybody until and unless they went back to the drawing board and finalized all pending issues.
He said that they had received counter correspondences from the Strategic Policy Unit (SPU) in the office of the President and from the Minister of Local Government regarding the handing-over of their waste management functions to MASADA.
Councillor Turay argued that cleaning the city was the sole responsibility of the Freetown City Council and that only the council could outsource that function to another agency. He said that as the supervising authority, the Ministry of Local Government could not enter into any contract on behalf of the council, without their (council’s) approval.
The Acting General Manager of the Freetown Waste Management Company Sulaiman Zainu Parker explained that they had been holding a series of meetings with MASSADA to reach an understanding but that they were still struggling to synchronize the transition process.
Parker said he wasn't challenging the orders of the minister but rather he was confused by it. “I am confused as to who to answer to, I have received three different letters from the Minister, the SPU and the Mayor all giving counter instructions. I don’t know what to do.”
The National Project Manager of MASSADA Energy International, Amie Dumbuya said that her company was "the legitimate winner of the contract to clean the city and we have gone through the process legitimately". She said that they had demonstrated their preparedness by starting operations across the city and revealed that they had received letters from the office of the president and the Minister of Local Government authorizing them to take over the contract.
Dumbuya said the Minister of Local Government had written a letter to the management of FWMC instructing them to hand over the management to MASSADA but that the Management of FWMC had refused to oblige. “We are not a charity organization, we are here to work and we want to do our work, the government has approved our project and we want to start working now.” She said.
