WHOLESALERS, retailers, their workers, as well as sidewalk vendors in downtown Kingston Tuesday called for the intervention of Prime Minister Andrew Holness to help pressure authorities to solve the ongoing sewage problem in the city’s business district.

One frustrated Chinese wholesale operator on West Street was next to tears as she mopped sewage from her store on Tuesday. She said that she has lost a lot of money because sewage would sometimes flood her store and destroy goods.

“One time is okay, but tomorrow again? It is too much. In December, it make mi lose money. Water, water, water, everything was under water,” the Chinese wholesale operator explained.

Just as another wholesale operator was making an appeal to the prime minister to step in and help solve the problem, a man fell, apparently slipping in sewage that was running on the sidewalk at a section of West Street.

“See the man just drop deh. We are tired of this now. Andrew, we need you to come downtown to come take a look or send your entourage. This can’t work. As the man dem come draw the sewage, by the day fi end, it start run again. I was talking to one of the men who work on the cesspool trucks and he said they can’t solve the problem because the entire line needs to change out. Even if they come 10 times for the day to draw the sewage, it is the same problem by the time the day ends. It affects me real bad. Business is slow, slow, slow. We have been experiencing this consistently for over a month. The whole entire downtown a flood out and nobody cares. We downtown don’t count,” a store operator said.

A male wholesale worker claimed that he has witnessed numerous people fall in sewage in the market district. “People a drop in it and have to go home and bathe and nothing is being done about it,” he lamented.

A female wholesale worker told the Jamaica Observer that she became ill from the filth that has taken over the streets.

“Inhaling the sewage made me get sick twice. It gave me bacteria in my stomach. While at work, I can’t even get to eat lunch because of the scent. We are poor people, but we don’t have to go through these things. We have had the problem consistently from June, where, as they draw it, it overflow again and from morning we have to be in it,” the female worker claimed.

The Observer saw a cesspool truck Tuesday to pull sewage from a pit on West Street, but according to one streetside vendor, no matter how may trucks come downtown, the problem always breaks out again soon after.

“The increase in population has contributed to it. To my knowledge, the pipes underneath are old, rotten, and broken. If it draw now, it come back later. This nuh good fi people health. This actually sick people. I am appealing to the bigger man dem, like the prime minister, to do something. Last week when the street was dry, the dust lick mi inna mi mouth and it wasn’t good.

“The problem is not limited to this section of downtown. Sewage is everywhere. Go around to ‘Fish Ground’ and other areas and you’ll see. The other day men came with about three big cesspool trucks and draw sewage about 10 times, and by the time dem gone, the water start run again. The place need to dig up. Everyday we in filth and sometimes the water is red. A bloody water that. The scent alone make people don’t want to stop and buy. Nothing is selling. Sometimes the water a bubble up high, high. Out at Pechon Street and Beckford Street corner is the same problem.”

One man who works in the area believes that cesspool trucks cannot solve the problem of sewage overrunning the streets and also called on Prime Minister Holness to come up with a master plan that will fix the recurring problem “once and for all”.