GOVERNMENT yesterday rushed to settle some $1.9 million in debt to the National Solid Waste Management Agency (NSWMA) in order to have the entity resume garbage collection at police stations islandwide.

The agency reportedly ceased collecting garbage at the beginning of November after the Enforcement and Collections office at the NSWMA issued the directive to its workers due to non-payment of collection fees for more than three months.

But yesterday Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security Major Richard Reese said that situation was a feature of the past as the debt to the entity would be cleared during the course of the day.

“The debt to Solid Waste is to be cleared today. The NSWMA had ceased collections because of an outstanding payment and discussions have been had with the executives of the NSWMA to resume regular collections, pending the resolution of the outstanding payments,” Reese told the Observer.

The permanent secretary said he had been advised that the entity would immediately resume collections in tandem with its regular collection cycle of two to three times per week.

Reese was, however, unable to say how many police stations have had garbage piling up over the period. “It would have impacted all JCF facilities served by the NSWMA but I am not in a position to speak to specific stations,” Reese said.

According to the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s website, there are 43 police stations in the Corporate Area and 28 in the rural areas. But of the 71 stations listed it was unclear how many depended on the NSWMA for garbage collection.

Executive director of the solid waste agency, Joan Gordon-Webley, said yesterday that collections had resumed “some two days ago”. However, she had no idea how many stations had been affected.

Yesterday, General Secretary for the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP) Peter Bunting, in a statement, said the party was informed Thursday by Mayor of Mandeville Brenda Ramsay that no garbage had been collected at that town’s police station for nearly three weeks, adding that the situation at many other stations was threatening to become a health hazard.

Bunting said he was informed that garbage at the police station in the Manchester capital, Mandeville, was only collected yesterday morning, when police officers “raised $10,000 on their own to make payment to facilitate some collection”.

Head of the Mandeville police, Superintendent Howard Francis, confirmed yesterday that his office had problems with the non-collection of garbage. “But when I came to work this morning a truck was backed up; the garbage has been collected.”

Officers at the Christiana Police Station, also in Manchester, said they disposed of their garbage themselves as they had no dealing with the NSWMA.

Officers at the divisional headquarters in Black River, St Elizabeth, said they have had no problems with garbage collection, “and we accumulate a lot of garbage here”.

And as the cash crunch on the Jamaica Labour Party administration tightens, the security ministry said it has been reviewing and phasing in payments to creditors, of which the NSWMA was one such. The ministry said a number of payments would be made to other creditors, commencing Monday.

The Observer was unable to ascertain the total number of creditors or the full sum owed. The newspaper has, however, learnt that the outstanding amounts were well over $100 million.

Meanwhile, the PNP said the non-collection of garbage at police stations was further proof that the Government was deeply in the red and struggling to meet its financial commitments, as it pointed to this week’s disclosure that the Ministry of Health had $1.6 billion in unpaid debts.

– Additional reporting by Rhoma Tomlinson in Mandeville.