The National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) has, it would appear, embarked on a marketing campaign to "clean up the country", judging by the recent articles printed in another newspaper.
The authority is claiming that businesses - wholesalers being the main offenders - are taking their waste from the business place to their place of residence to avoid paying for its disposal. They further stated that they have approached these offenders and given them warnings of citations and advised them to contract a garbage disposal company, NSWMA or any other, they claimed.
Now, one does not need a telescope to see through this guise. NSWMA as a public body with Government funds soliciting private commercial waste is not only unfair competition but could be classified as 'dirty business'. Why should they be allowed to compete with private waste collection companies who do not enjoy the same privileges they do as it relates to taxes and other subsides they so rightly are allowed. I am in the commercial waste business, struggling to maintain my position in an industry that is affected by the worldwide recession, and now have to deal with a Government funded agency forcing me out of business and doing this using my taxes and that of other hard-working Jamaicans.
What NSWMA has failed to report is that they are approaching private commercial businesses with contracted waste providers and, in essence, offering them 'service for a price they cannot afford to refuse'. I have received terminations from clients who have told me that NSWMA is doing their collection for as much as 70 per cent less. Who wouldn't take up an offer like that in these trying times? These clients are not looking at the disparity, they do not care that they are being offered subsidised garbage collection, heck, maybe the Government should look into offering them subsidised water and light too!
Equipment costs
Private haulers purchase their trucks and equipment through loans from banks at interest rates as high as 28-30 per cent. NSWMA trucks and equipment costs are funded by taxpayers' money (ours) interest free!
Now, about these allegations from NSWMA, something just does not ring right, I smell something fishy, or maybe even dirty! Could it be that the NSWMA is using these alleged offenders in a campaign as a way of justifying the agency collecting commercial waste?
I am, etc.,
Troubled Private
Waste Hauler