CWSA crafting plan to ensure Grenadines consumers pay their solid waste bill

Senior officials of the Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA) are in the process of formulating a plan that should result in more consumers in the Grenadines paying their solid waste bill.{{more}}

At a press conference on Tuesday, CWSA’s General Manager Garth Saunders stated that his company would be exploring options to increase collection of fees from consumers there, most of whom have been deilnquent over the years.

Saunders indicated that the Authority is looking at adopting a procedure similar to that used in Grenada, where the fee for solid waste collection is included on the electricity bill.

“We are going to find some means of emulating that to ensure that consumers in the Grenadines can pay…. We are going to be working assiduously to try to resolve that issue….”

Saunders also pointed out that the system which they are hoping to implement would not only ensure that the consumers pay, but would also provide an easy mechanism for residents to pay their bill.

“We know its kind of hard to expect persons to go to line up to pay $5 per month…. Sometimes people overlook that, and it’s easy to overlook, but we believe that once it is included somewhere else, where you can easily pay that amount, things should improve, so we would be moving in that direction very shortly.”

The media was informed by solid waste manager Winsbert Quow that consumers in the Grenadines currently owe the company $750,000, which he said is disappointing, since the area stands to benefit from one of the Authority’s major projects.

Under this project, the Authority aims to manage solid waste in a ‘greener’ fashion, which includes the sorting of garbage, along with recycling and reusing, in an attempt to reduce what goes into the landfill.

Quow pointed out that solid waste collection in the Grenadines was subsidized, and that garbage is collected twice per week there.

He made an appeal to the residents who are not paying to do so.

“We want to produce the highest quality service, and we realize it is critical to the Grenadines and to St. Vincent on a whole, so we decided to surge on with offering our great services even though we are having a financial impact.”

With the increased rates, consumers in the Grenadines will now pay $10 for solid waste removal; up from $5.

Consumers on the mainland will now pay $11 for a once a week collection, up from $8.

According to CWSA officials, only ten per cent of consumers in the Grenadines have paid their solid waste bill over the last month.(JJ)