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Solid Waste to go after people who continue to dump illegally
By Aabigayle McIntosh
The government will be redoubling its efforts in a bid to catch violators who continue to litter streets across Antigua and Barbuda with no regard for the law.
Chairman of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) Michael Joseph said the Attorney General will be intervening on the legal side of things to deal with the enforcement of the Litter Control and Prevention Act.
The services of a prosecutor will also be hired to work directly with the NSWMA in this regard.
“I think that individuals have gotten so comfortable now with no action or an inaction or any repercussions for that. That they’ve just blatantly just said, I don’t care. We’ve seen videos of individuals just throwing things out there. One of our problems is that, of course, because this is a prosecutorial area. Is that we have to ensure that we have the capacity.
“So we’re moving actually over the next three months to ascertain the services of the Attorney General’s office. I’m having a prosecutor on board that works specifically with us. As it pertains to going after individuals that continue to violate the Litter Act. And those individuals at the community level,” Josephs said.
He added that the Cabinet of Antigua and Barbuda also gave a commitment and an undertaking to equip the NSWMA with the tools that’s necessary to allow litter wardens to be able to investigate different reports that comes before the department.
“Currently, the challenge we have with our Litter Wardens is that there are few of them that are trained and certified. Of course, there are others out there and we’re going to be increasing that pool of Litter Wardens. But also, the accessibility of them to go into the community. So in St. John’s, that’s fine”.
The Cabinet have also committed to providing vehicles to make available to the Litter Wardens so that they can respond more timely to reports, thoroughly investigate them.
Joseph said, “Once we have that prosecutorial established in Solid Waste, then we’ll have a dedicated individual to go after these individuals and make sure that they understand that the law is the law. We’re going to be implementing quite a bit of strategies to catch individuals, even in the absence of personnel being there. That we’ll be able to capture them”.
Charity begins at home and spreads itself abroad. If you keep your house/ home filthy is it any wonder that you have no regard for your surroundings? All citizens of beautiful Antigua and Barbuda should have some semblance civic pride. How can you go about dumping garbage willy nilly especially when receptacles have been provided? Let’s have some pride in keeping our islands clean so that even visitors will marvel at their cleanliness. To that end, I agree- violators must be forced to make a choice – the stick or the carrot. After all, cleanliness is next to Godliness.