Georgetown municipality blamed for garbage pileup

Guyana’s Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Sonia Parag, said on Thursday during an end-of-year press conference at the Arthur Chung Conference Center, Ogle, that the City Council in Georgetown, which collects the largest amount of tax revenue, has a mandate for garbage collection and keeping the city clean.

The municipality is responsible for the timely and proper garbage collection in Georgetown. However, according to Parag, her ministry has, on several occasions, taken on the responsibility of cleaning up the city.

After years of neglect, City Hall has undergone total restoration to its historic glory. After years of neglect, it is just one of many projects completed in partnership with the King of England underpinning.

“The central ministry has supported the council time and time again in the last year. We’ve had several instances where persons have called the ministry directly for assistance, and we have responded. His Excellency, in his New Year’s address, has promised to create a new landfill site, but the City Council must carry out its mandate.”

The ongoing health crisis concerns not only locals but also overseas Guyanese, who have repeatedly called for the city to take quick action to address the unhealthy conditions that vendors and consumers face.

President Irfaan Ali, who has said he was pleased with the partnership with the Kings Charles Foundation in renewing the City of Georgetown, assured that his government will create a new landfill site to ease the solid waste crisis plaguing Georgetown and all of Guyana.

Parag, recently appointed to the portfolio, said her ministry has supported the City Council after residents called the ministry directly to complain of solid waste pileup.
“Central government will assist where we can, especially when we have a national cleanup exercise. We will continue to invest heavily financially and with human resources,” Parag said.

The politician who presented a vigorous summary of works completed across the regions in 2024, at a total of approximately GY$103B, while improving education, public works, agriculture, solid waste management, and parks with a long-term goal to enhance communities, was bombarded with questions about the decaying Stabroek and Boarda, the two largest and dilapidated marketplaces in Georgetown.

President  Ali, who is always on the ground across the country as part of the government’s developmental strategy, acted last year when part of the Stabroek Market wharf collapsed.
He blamed the City Council for the lack of oversight and key maintenance of the 144-year-old historic site that houses a clock overlooking the city.

However, Minister Parag was not clear whether a total remodel of the markets will commence in the first quarter of 2025 but reassured that rehabilitation of the service areas will continue to accommodate vending.

She also blamed business owners and residents for “not cleaning their environment,” adding, “We want to create not only a physical transformation but also a cultural transformation where our country looks nice. What I have seen in the last four short years of development are spaces that can now be called beautiful and accommodating, like the Sea Wall esplanade and trees that are being planted in different areas. We are working for that holistic, beautiful tone,” she said.

Minister Parag praised the government’s Pathway Workers Program, launched in 2022 by the administration, as a success, with a significant increase in workers. Approximately 11,457 are women, representing an impressively high percentage on a part-time or work program. This achievement underscores the government’s commitment not only to bolstering local earning capacity but also to deliberately empowering women to earn and meaningfully contribute to the nation’s development.

“When it was conceptualized, we were ensuring that we met our manifesto promise of job creation, so those persons who are employed under the pathway program are persons who were unemployed. We wanted to ensure that another person in that house would be employed and contribute to that household, also at a time when we were facing a pandemic and rising cost of living,” said Minister Parag.