Although it has become a regular occurrence in the heart of Spanish Town, St Catherine to see drains overflowing with stagnant water and debris, and garbage piled high on the streets, the people working in the area believe more can be done to ensure the streets are cleaned and remain so.

One bus conductor told the OBSERVER ONLINE that his message to the Mayor of Spanish Town, Norman Scott, is to “do better.”

Describing the state of the drains across from the Spanish Town Shopping Centre on Burke Road, 45-year-old Ansel said, “If rain barely dew, the whole a di town turn one little sea.”

“A many years now the drain stay so. All the Mayor come and look pan it and nothing no done to it. A whole heap a germs and mosquito in a it… It stay bad man, yah so, very difficult,” he said.

Acknowledging that the people in the area can also do better, as they add to the garbage in the drains and on the streets, Ansel said he is very nervous about an impending hurricane, since the country is currently in the hurricane season.

Echoing Ansel’s statement, another bus conductor, Kemar, 37, said after it rains the street is “soggy.”

“A long time here so stay so. If it do clean, it full up back. Them need fi do something ‘bout it because the water settlement nuh look good, and the mosquito too,” Kemar said.

Shifting focus to the piles of garbage on the streets, Shernette, a 37-year-old vendor, who works in front of the shopping centre said she along with other vendors have to ensure that the garbage bins in front of the shopping centre do not overflow.

“Like this now,” she began, pointing to a bin that is filled with garbage. “You see when this full up, dem [the street cleaners] don’t take it up, dem say a no fi dem work. It a go high, high, and pile up and dem nah look pan it. We haffi clean it, because the man dem feel like seh true we a sell out here, a we nasty it up. But, a nuh we nasty it up, that deh here so and passerby come and dem throw box in a it [and] full it up,” Shernette explained, adding that the garage truck does its rounds every morning.

In an effort to keep the area clean, Shernette said she pays someone to remove the garbage on a regular basis.

“We haffi give dem like one two bills ($200) or $150. A da mad man yah, if you give him a hundred dollar, him a go tell you fi put 50 shillings more pan it. It affects us, but a fi wi business and a we a sell out here so therefore we have to clean it up. Me haffi do weh me haffi do,” she said.

At the same time, another vendor who operates alongside Shernette, 50-year-old Sandra said, while indicating a garbage bin that is filled to the brim, “Dah bin deh, [is] me put dah bag in deh and dem [street cleaners] nuh take it out, a yesterday me put it in.”

However, speaking on the issue, Mayor Scott told the Observer that in addition to installing garbage receptacles along Burke Road and leading to Oxford Road, he ensures that the drains are cleaned on a monthly basis.

“I’m the only entity that cleans those drains, the last time I cleaned that drain when there was some heavy water in front of the plaza, it cost us almost a million dollars, that’s an exorbitant figure. That was done about a month and a-half-ago,” Scott confirmed, adding that he does this even though it is the duty of the National Works Agency.

Noting that the drains are very old and too small to hold the volume of water seen during heavy rainfall, Scott said, “The last time I got a costing to really reconstruct those drains it [was a] huge figure, it’s over a billion dollars and that was over 10 years ago, so I can image how much that would take now to really reconstruct those drains.”

He stated that the culture of the people needs to change as well, to ensure that the drains are not clogged by man-made garbage.

“The game is a two-fold game, you know, because I’m sure when I say we can dispose of our garbage in a better manner, they’ll say that if you don’t look and see the receptacles full up very quickly. So, they’ll say, there needs to be a system of removing the garbage out of these receptacles on a timely basis, and that would fall under the [National Solid Waste Management Authority],” Scott said.