Review of Garbage Rates in Cities

There is a need to correctly price garbage collection fees, says Minister for Local Government Premila Kumar. She said garbage collection was not being treated as an essential service and the collection for garbage disposal was not sufficient and does not meet the total cost of the service delivered.

At the moment, she said Suva residents pay $27 per year for garbage collection three days a week.

When calculated by 52 weeks it comes to 156 days of collection per year, which amounts to a cost of $5.77 per ratepayer per day.

She said the cost sometimes amounts to less than $1 per day which could not even buy a cup of coffee.

“$27 is nothing in comparison to what people spend when they go out for family dinners or what they spend in their entertainment or buying recharge cards,” Ms Kumar said.

“Again for example in Suva even the commercial operators they also pay the same rate which means the residential rate payers are subsidizing the commercial operators and in that situation its less than two cents is what they pay per collection because in the central CBD area for the business community the collection is six days a week that means people are paying less than two cents.”

She explained that in return municipal councils are required to have the right set of people to provide the service, skillset, the number of vehicles plus they have to pay for the gate fee.

“There’s a lot of cost involved but our collection is not sufficient or meets this total cost of service delivery.”

She said Sigatoka ratepayers pay $100 per year for garbage collection which was more than Suva.