SSA complaints about vagrants attacking crews

Crews from the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) are increasingly being attacked by “aggressive vagrants” in and around Bridgetown, Public Relations Officer Carl Alff Padmore has lamented.

“We are using the word ‘aggressive’ because there are some of them that you can ask them to move so that we can do the collection and there are some that are actually coming with weapons at our crews,” he said.

Padmore is therefore appealing to families who have homeless relatives living in The City to seek help for their loved ones.

“Our crews go out early in Bridgetown after midnight and these fellows [vagrants] have made up their beds on the pavement and when you ask them to kindly shift so we can get the waste, the guys want to throw urine on us and faeces; that can’t be good.

“So we are appealing to the public if you have family that you know are living in Bridgetown [on the streets] get help for them,” Padmore said.

He reported two recent incidents in which SSA crews had to halt collection and make a report to the police.

The SSA PRO also cited Wednesday’s massive clean-up exercise at First Avenue Grazettes, where a man had been hoarding waste for more than two years. Police had to accompany the SSA crews.

Meantime, Padmore, who toured several sections of The City on Thursday, confirmed that the SSA is behind in terms of the collection of garbage.

“The reason for this is that between the middle of April and beginning of May you would have realised there was steady rainfall,” he explained, adding that recent public holidays and the absence of several workers due to COVID-19 had contributed to that situation as well.

“But we are confident that we can get back on stream, I want to give that assurance,” Padmore said. (BT)