Trash trucks to be retrofitted – source

Not a single new garbage truck has made it onto the roads since they arrived here nearly a week ago as workers baulk at changes in the way the vehicles are operated, Barbados TODAY has learned.

Four days after Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) Chairman Rudy Grant promised they would start clearing the country’s mounting piles of garbage, the trucks have reportedly remained parked with no word on when they might get to work.

An official source disclosed: “As far as I know, there was no formal meeting set up and as far as I know, the trucks are not on the road yet.

“The Minister and the chairman, even before the union got involved were trying to get some issues with the trucks sorted out.” The source declined to be identified because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

The official told Barbados TODAY the left-hand drive vehicles, which came with changes to the usual configuration of SSA trucks, are now to be retrofitted.

The source explained: “It is just that the trucks have issues and the Minister and the chairman are trying to get them sorted out.

“The cab cannot hold three persons and they have to retrofit the trucks with a third seat.

“The steps that would usually be at the back are on the side so they are trying to retrofit them as well.”

The National Union of Public Workers (NUPW) have demanded an urgent meeting with the chairman to discuss the workers’ concerns about the trucks.

Efforts to reach Minister of the Environment and National Beautification Trevor Prescod throughout the day were unsuccessful.

When Barbados TODAY reached the SSA chairman, he said he was not in a position to comment at the time and asked to be
contacted later in the day. But numerous calls to Senator Grant since then have gone unanswered.

There is now no word on a revised date on which the trucks will hit the road.

But the chairman told the Senate on Monday the ten new garbage trucks which landed at the Bridgetown Port last Saturday would be on the road by evening.

“The trucks will not be painted. The trucks will just have the decal and the trucks will get to work,” Senator Grant told lawmakers.

But by the next day, the would-be operators were already expressing concern about the vehicles which SSA mechanics reportedly had not been allowed to inspect.

In response, Prime Minister Mia Mottley took to Starcom Network radio to declare she was willing to engage SSA in dialogue on the issues.

But by Friday, NUPW President Akanni McDowall revealed that talks were yet to occur.

“We are still awaiting that urgent meeting,” he told Barbados TODAY on Friday evening, while declining to go into further detail.

But he acknowledged that the union was only able to send official correspondence to the SSA on Friday after the Christmas holidays.

Since then, Opposition Leader Joseph Atherley has raised separate concerns about the financing arrangements surrounding the recently-acquired garbage trucks as well as the mounting pileups still affecting the country.

Atherley said: “To the extent that we do get an adequate number of trucks, will we then have the staff complement to properly service those trucks?

“We have had some layoffs in government and we anticipate further layoffs, so we may very well end up with additional trucks but not enough staff to man those trucks so that we can get regular and scheduled garbage collection.”

The ten left-hand-drive Navistar trucks out of Mexico cost $400,000 each.
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb