LOCAL Government Minister Noel Arscott, we see, is scheduled to meet with the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) board over the current imbroglio at the State-run agency. It is our hope that after that meeting the public will be clearer about a number of issues publicised last week concerning the operations of the NSWMA.

Among them are the reports of poor financial management of the NSWMA itself; management of the island’s waste disposal sites, particularly Riverton; the availability of resources; and, not least, the obvious tension between Executive Director Ms Jennifer Edwards and Board Chairman Mr Steve Ashley.

Given that the reports of financial irregularities at the NSWMA have not, to our knowledge, been denied, we must conclude that there is some truth to them.

In that regard, the NSWMA board can’t simply stay silent and hope that the matter will fade. For what is at issue here is the use of taxpayers’ money and whether there is need for anyone to be sanctioned.

After this recent fire at Riverton and its devastating effects on people’s health, disruption of education, and the heavy financial blow it delivered to businesses, the Jamaican people need to be assured that steps are being taken to quickly implement proper management systems at the island’s waste disposal sites, because it is very obvious that what now obtains is woefully inadequate.

So, too, are the resources with which the NSWMA is forced to work.

The information that Ms Edwards shared with this newspaper regarding resources and published on Sunday is quite startling. According to Ms Edwards, the NSWMA needs 274 trucks, each doing two trips per day, to collect the garbage that is generated in Jamaica every day.

However, the agency has only 55, which she described as old and broken. And of that 55, she says, at least four or five are out of service each day.

That, surely, is unsustainable and can only lead to a worsening of the service paid for by our taxes. In addition, whatever we may think of Ms Edwards and her capacity to manage the NSWMA, it can’t be enough for Mr Ashley to simply state that he has concerns about her management style yet, when her contract expired at the end of February he and the board extended it for another month.

Mr Ashley needs to state what those concerns are and give Ms Edwards an opportunity to respond. That is the just and decent thing to do.

However, the larger issue to us is the future of waste management in this country. We maintain that it needs to be privatised, because as it now stands the stain and stench of politics have badly smeared the NSWMA.

Waste management is too serious an issue for it to be treated in a partisan manner by the Government. For, if it is not properly done, the country faces the risk of serious health and environmental problems.

There is no getting around the fact that waste management needs to be placed high on the Government’s list of priorities.