Refuse left for weeks in Sekondi-Takoradi

The company that has been assigned to cart refuse in Kweikuma is yet to start operations due to logistical problems. As residents wait, the refuse is piling.

Residents are, therefore, asking why the assembly would award contracts to companies that have little to offer— in terms of equipment—to manage waste in the residential facilities.

The sad aspect is that monthly payments to these waste companies in the metropolis is not done by the assembly. The money is paid in Accra and, therefore, even if the company fails to deliver, it still gets paid.

It still remains unclear how these companies get clearance from the officials of the assemblies and get paid for no work done.

Some residents say for the past three weeks they have had to hire people to dig holes for them to bury the waste since Zoomlion, which was initially collecting the refuse, has been moved from their area.

Madam Tina, a resident of Adiembra, said sometimes stray animals scattered the waste all over, adding “we have to sweep it all before going to work.”

That aside, some of the refuse trucks of some of the contractors are not in a good shape. The trucks move from the point of collection but before they reach the landfill site at Essipon, half of the refuse would have been  blown by the wind back to the communities.

Some of the companies do not even have trucks but have been awarded contracts to cart waste in the metropolis while other have trucks with rusty containers.

Some companies have trucks but do not have containers, so they have to use containers that belong to the assembly, which in most cases are longer that the chassis of the trucks.

As a result, residents in Sekondi/Takoradi are questioning the roadworthiness of the vehicles of some  refuse companies in the metropolis.

They also want to know why the Sekondi/Takoradi Metropolitan Assembly (STMA) would release its containers that are supposed to be placed in communities to private companies.

When the Daily Graphic contacted the Regional Manager of Zoomlion, Mr G. Sogbey, to inquire why they had stopped carting waste from certain areas, he said the metropolis had been re-zoned.

In the quest of the Daily Graphic to find answers to the question why the metropolis was not handed to the company which is equipped to handle the waste, the assembly said that would mean monopoly.

Efforts to get a response from the waste management department of the assembly proved futile.

Story by Moses Dotsey Aklorbortu