Questions have been asked time and time again, why is the City of Montego Bay so dirty? From all indications, it seems that the powers that be, entrusted to clean and beautify our streets and communities are not doing a good job.
Sufficient evidence have proven that the Government of St. James fell asleep concerning their duties to remove the street garbage from the city.
McKoy’s News took to the streets and lanes across Montego Bay and came upon several piles of garbage littering the streets. Almost everywhere that our news team visited in and around the city, there were garbage deposits in pockets all over.
In some instances, garbage stocked-piled left, right and centre, in and around Jamaican’s second city! When our news team visited the popular Charles Gordon Market, situated along Fustic Road, in uptown Montego Bay, garbage could be seen lying all over. In one area that the team visited it was apparent that the garbage had not been collected by the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) for days or weeks. As a result, garbage was seen scattered all over the street.
Another disgraceful sight that we visited was at the intersection of Railway Lane and Fustic Road, where we found large piles of street garbage which greeted us with some very unpleasant stench coming from the many stagnant deposits dumped along that corridor; by some untidy vendors plying their wares in the vicinity of the food market. Even the surrounding business enterprises contributed to the dumping of garbage at the same location.
Would it put a deficit in the parish budget to build concrete garbage receptacles around Montego Bay to house street garbage?
There is also another alarming situation that is taking place next to the Montego Bay Transport Centre, along Fish Lane. The collage of street garbage has become a nuisance to the many commuters using the transport centre to get to their respective destinations. The premise which was once fenced off has now reverted to a garbage dump. Stray animals, and rats can be seen having numerous parties in broad day light in the refusals being dumped along the corridors of the broken down fencing, which once provided separation and safety for transport owners and operators, and the many pedestrians who filter in and out of the centre daily.
Efforts to speak to the management of the Transport Centre were futile; however, a vendor who peddles his goods inside the centre (name withheld), told Mckoy’s News that the transport managements’ only concern is to collect money from those using the centre. “They don’t care, so long as they collect from the vendors and motorist, who are using the centre,” he expressed in hopelessness.
Our news team also visited the people’s Arcade across from the transport centre, but was forced to use precautionary steps when crossing the foot-path bridge leading to and from the Transport Centre because of its present condition. Sections of the walkway have given way to years of decay, making it very risky to walk on. When Mckoy’s News contacted the (NSWMA) office we were told that the person who is responsible out for the day.
Meanwhile, many streets, lanes and gullies in and around the city of Montego Bay remain in deplorable conditions. Not to mention the many replicated sidewalks, damaged and missing manhole coverings, insufficient waste baskets among other missing items that would provide suitable collections for street gargbage. Our news team visited several other section of the city where it was visible that some of the drains and water channels have not been cleared for decades.
They are filled with slime, murky substances and grass; which took over as results of neglect from the street cleaning department of the St. James Municipality Council. Numerous telephone calls to that Council were unanswered, while the downtown business district of Montego Bay remains covered with street garbage, for how long; only the National Solid Waste Management Authority knows .
