RALPH BAN­WARIE

Garbage has been pil­ing up across Va­len­cia for more than two weeks af­ter the con­trac­tor re­spon­si­ble for col­lec­tion stopped ser­vic­ing the dis­trict, cit­ing the need for a high­er pay­ment to deal with the grow­ing num­ber of squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties.

Ken­wyn Phillip, chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, said the non-re­moval of garbage in the Va­len­cia dis­trict was caused by the garbage con­trac­tor ask­ing for an in­crease in pay­ment. The con­trac­tor has re­fused to col­lect garbage in the Va­len­cia dis­trict for more than two weeks. Phillip said the coun­cil was not aware of this no­tice from the con­trac­tor.

He said, in the in­ter­im, they are us­ing Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion trucks to as­sist in the re­moval of the garbage.

He added that the con­trac­tor stat­ed that, due to the grow­ing squat­ting com­mu­ni­ties, the price the SGRC nor­mal­ly pays to ser­vice the Va­len­cia area means they can no longer ser­vice the area for the same price.

How­ev­er, he men­tioned that the coun­cil had no knowl­edge of this. "Had coun­cil re­ceived a copy of that doc­u­ment when it was sent to the cor­po­ra­tion, we would have put things in place to en­sure that we would have elim­i­nat­ed this sit­u­a­tion that they are go­ing through right now," he said.

He al­so said who­ev­er the let­ter was sent to in the cor­po­ra­tion did not pro­vide them with a copy, and he on­ly heard about the is­sue "in a par­ty".

A copy of the let­ter was on­ly giv­en to them at a fi­nance meet­ing when Coun­cil­lor Calvin Seecha­ran, who al­so serves as chair­man of the meet­ing, asked for it.

Chair­man Phillip made it clear that no in­crease in price can be made un­til it reach­es the coun­cil.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Va­len­cia, garbage was seen pil­ing up at every house, cor­ner, side of build­ings and even at the Health Cen­tre.

House­wives said there had been no col­lec­tion of garbage for the last two weeks, which was be­com­ing a health haz­ard. Worms, flies and rats were seen dur­ing the two weeks. They al­so said a foul smell was em­a­nat­ing from the garbage.

Most of them said this was the first time they were ex­pe­ri­enc­ing this un­healthy con­di­tion.

"Garbage used to be col­lect­ed on reg­u­lar ba­sis, but for what rea­son we have not seen the garbage trucks for more than two weeks," they said.

How­ev­er, they said they were hap­py and pleased to see the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion trucks ful­fill­ing the du­ties of the reg­u­lar garbage trucks.

At a stretch of Va­len­cia in the vicin­i­ty of Emon Lane, one man was us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and com­plained that the stench com­ing from the garbage was un­bear­able. He said, "Is all kind of waste ma­te­ri­als that is pol­lut­ing the place and hin­der­ing busi­ness."

The res­i­dents were hap­py and got some re­lief from the eye­sore of the garbage pile-up when trucks from the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion ar­rived and work­ers were seen load­ing the garbage on­to the trays of the trucks and re­mov­ing it.

Garbage was al­so seen at the health cen­tre in Va­len­cia.

Chair­man of the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion apol­o­gised to the peo­ple of Va­len­cia and re­as­sured them that this would not re­oc­cur. "It was no way the fault of the Coun­cil but lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion," he em­pha­sised.

Again, he men­tioned that if the coun­cil had the slight­est idea that the garbage con­trac­tor had re­fused to con­tin­ue work­ing, he would have put things in place to avoid the pile-up of garbage in the Va­len­cia dis­tricts.