MONTEGO BAY, St James — Garbage left uncollected for more than a month by the State agency cost Orange Hill Primary School dearly during a recent inspection, according to Councillor Kenroy Gordon (People’s National Party, Catadupa Division).

Addressing the monthly council meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation on Thursday, he laid the blame squarely at the feet of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) and its regional arm, Western Parks and Markets (WPM). He said the agency had failed to clear garbage from a skip located at the school.

When pressed for additional information, Gordon was unable to provide details about the inspection but he said school officials indicated that it had been done by one of the agencies under the Ministry of Education and Youth.

“Based on information from the principal, they were doing some inspections and they would have gotten lower marks than they should have and it was because of the garbage not being collected,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“I have had discussions with the National Solid Waste Management Authority and I was promised that it would have been collected,” he said.

Gordon painted a picture of a string of broken promises.

“On one occasion, I was told that the truck is on its way, but the truck never made it there for whatever reason and they never returned. Two weeks after, I brought it back up to the gentleman and he said he would have had it collected last Sunday or Monday and it still has not been collected,” the elected official lamented.

He said after the problem persisted for a month and a half, the garbage was set ablaze.

“It is so unfortunate that the residents set it on fire because it was there for probably about six weeks. I don’t know who did it but it was actually burnt,” Gordon stated.

He described the situation as disheartening and complained of unresponsiveness from WPM.

“The last couple of times I tried calling them I have gotten no answer. It’s as if you are calling somebody who has decided that they don’t want to talk to this guy anymore. I’m just not comfortable with that,” the councillor said.

During the meeting he also urged WPM to include the Horse Guards community on its pickup route. However, NSWMA Customer Relations Officer Sharnon Williams advised that the area was not on the collection schedule and a request of extension of service to that community would be necessary to facilitate the councillor’s request.

Gordon spurned the advice.

“I’m not going to accept that because this is my fourth time raising it,” he retorted.

He said he twice raised the issue in one-on-one conversation with agency personnel and he raised it again during a council meeting.

“I was told that we need to schedule a date to go visit the area and so forth,” he insisted.

Gordon was not the only one with concerns about WPM’s operations. Councillor Joshua Cummings (Jamaica Labour Party, Montego Bay Central) raised the issue of what he said was an apparent lack of enforcement against illegal dump sites. Meanwhile, Councillor Kerry Thomas (People’s National Party, Mount Salem Division) lambasted the agency based on reports he said he has received that there was insufficient garbage collection in some areas of his division for more than a month.

In response to both men, the NSWMA’s Williams presented potential solutions.

She explained to Cummings that they do not have enough enforcers on staff to effectively execute the monitoring required. She appealed to him to identify individuals who could take on that role, especially in the Norwood area.

In responding to Thomas, she challenged his assertion that the problem had persisted for a month and also noted that garbage collection had been impacted by issues beyond WPM’s control, such as a shooting in the community.