By: Precious Miracle Kargbo
The Information, Education and Communication Officer | Koma Hassan-Kamara has expressed that the Freetown city Council is displeased and concerned with the ongoing trend of theft allegations against garbage collectors in the capital. She made this statement on September 7th 2023.
To start, Madam Koma cleared that there has not been any report made to the council on these particular incidents because prior to the time citizens themselves called for such services and as a council she maintained that it is their duty to provide these services to the citizens especially in waste management.
“We have also been trying to see how we will be able to build a sustainable waste management structure so that the services of the council will be available to people at all time”, She added.
“At the start of these particular garbage collection ideas, everyone needs to know that these garbage collectors are privately owned businesses but as a council we called them to work together, empowered, registered and even provided gadgets to them like tricycles and many more”. Madam Koroma said. She also highlighted that since this partnership their operations have been going smoothly for over 5years now and they were always collaborating with the Freetown City Council even on general cleaning of the city apart from their private businesses of going to the houses of people to collect domestic waste.
“But now this act by these garbage collectors is a concern and it is very disheartening, so as a responsible administration we have heard the complaints of citizens and we will be calling them to meetings, notwithstanding we want citizens to continue giving us information especially victims of these particular happenings especially on who you registered with, your service provider that goes in compounds and then we will work with that information together with other partners and definitely quail that situation down and ensure that our people are completely safe and the purpose of these services are being met rather than being a threat to people’s lives”, Madam Koma explained.
Miss Koma describes that Freetown City Council is not tasked to employ these garbage collectors rather than by private companies who were engaged and partnered to help clean the city and especially domestic wastes from the compounds of citizens, she reaffirmed that in fact these companies have long been in operation before time and the council don’t have a clue on their yardstick of employment to their staff.
“All we do as a council is to monitor their operations and facilitate their activities and to ensure that the waste they collect from households are safely taken to the dumpsites”, she noted.
Furthermore, Madam Kamara assures that the issue is news to the council and an allegation that will surely go through proper investigations accordingly.
“We will call them to a meeting as every company has it leadership and we will engage and deliberate to find a way forward on how we can put a stop to these acts and if evidence emerged from this action then we will a take a stern action against the defaulting companies, all companies have their contacts displayed on their social media handles and if there are any complaints for any misconduct then the council or the leadership of these companies should be brought to notice by these citizens at once”, she explained
The communications officer Madam Koma maintained that there are not more than hundred private waste management companies registered to operate in Freetown, but they are working very closely to adopt methods of properly screening workers of these companies and at the same time a press release will be issued out by the council to admonish citizens to be careful, vigilant and be watchdogs of people entering and going out their compounds especially garbage collectors because the Freetown city Council will not be always around to monitor these companies.
