‘Call solid waste about that’
Spanish Town mayor blames NSWMA for dump at No 5 Cemetery
BUT for the name engraved on the dirty perimeter wall, you would mistake the No 5 Cemetery in Spanish Town for a dump.
A broken gate hangs from the equally filthy concrete columns. Garbage litters the entrance all the way up to the first set of charred tombstones. Further inside, piles of garbage are tangled in overgrown bushes, and stray animals roam the property where people had hoped their departed loved ones would rest with dignity and respect.
Located on Wellington Street in Spanish Town, the cemetery is owned and operated by the St Catherine Municipal Corporation, for which Mayor Norman Scott is the chairman.
Mayor Scott, however, insists that the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), and not the municipal corporation, should answer for the state of the cemetery.
“Call solid waste about that, man. You can’t call me about garbage. Call solid waste fi that,” Scott said when he was contacted by the Jamaica Observer on April 5.
Section 6 subsection (e) of the Public Cemetery Management and Regulation Act entitled ‘Duties and powers of the council generally’ states that the council “shall keep the cemetery and buildings and fences thereof in proper repair and in good order and condition”.
When reminded that the public cemetery is the responsibility of the municipal corporation, Mayor Scott said, “it is a public cemetery and therefore the NSWMA, if they were picking up the garbage, the citizens would not find the way or have the need to find places to dispose of it. So I don’t know why you calling me about it.”
“Call Mr Audley Gordon, take a picture of it and take it and show him,” he added, then ended the call.
On April 8 when the Sunday Observer contacted Gordon, he said he was in a meeting and requested that the questions be sent to him. The questions were sent. However, up to Friday when the newspaper was being prepared for press, there was no reply. Further phone calls to Gordon went unanswered.
According to residents, the cemetery reached its capacity more than 20 years ago and has been desecrated over the years due to inadequate upkeep.
“Cleaning nuh gwan again. Just one time when burial use to gwan. See them all ring off the gate and all them something deh,” Lyford Bartlett, who lives across from the cemetery, told the Sunday Observer.
He also speculated that people engaged in the scrap metal trade would soon steal the gate.
Bartlett said he remembers the days when the cemetery was kept in pristine condition.
However, he said that now there is no caretaker at the burial ground and it has slowly degraded.
He said the garbage spilling onto the sidewalk is from people living nearby who carry barrels of waste to the cemetery and throw the contents over the wall.
“Look how it make the place look. When the breeze ready now it blow it everywhere,” Bartlett said.
“I don’t feel good. I wouldn’t mind if it did set up properly and have caretaker. But I don’t know why the Government doesn’t want to pay anybody to look after it. As far as I can see, it have some big tall tree and bush that go way back to St Johns Road,” he added.
Another resident, Jermaine
Scott, told the Sunday Observer that garbage collection is a major issue in the area, and when the trucks do not collect the garbage, the residents resort to dumping their garbage in the cemetery.
“If they are not sending rubbish truck come round here, and the burial ground is right there, and is an old burial ground, them a seh might as well them throw rubbish on them. Over there really want to fix up,” Scott argued.
He said that it pains his heart to see this because “people have them dead over there and still cherish them dead. Them go over there and paint up the grave and try and take care of the place”.
However, he said their efforts are in vain given the poor upkeep.
He said that from time-totime the cemetery is cleaned by the municipal corporation. However, that is not done on a regular basis.
“They were cleaning it the other day, but that a because a Christmastime. The real cleaning weh that want still nuh gwan,” he said.
“If it did clean monthly, maybe it would be cleaner and prettier, but a just some one-time clean-up,” he added.
Dramaine Jones, the NSWMA’S regional operations manager for St Catherine, told the Sunday Observer that garbage along Wellington Street and areas surrounding the cemetery is collected daily.
“I know this area where the high-rises are close to the cemetery they’re collected everyday. All the main roads in Spanish Town are collected on a daily basis. If it was out of town, I would have said there is a possibility of us not collecting the waste, but however, based on what I am seeing...this is right in the town,” said Jones.
“As you know with some areas, waste is produced at a higher rate than others so it could be a possibility that there is a build-up in the afternoon, and also depending on the type of waste that you may see. Because whenever persons will leave old fridges and stoves and so on, which should have gone directly to the landfill or find a way to take it to the landfill, these would be left because our compactor units would not be able to pick them up,” he explained.
Jones said that while the mayor has not directly spoken to him about the issue with dumping at the cemetery, there was a recent meeting with the mayor and councillors to discuss illegal dumping in the area.
He added that plans have already been put in place for an enforcement and public education drive to help residents and businesses properly dispose of waste.