SSA down but certainly not out

The Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) fleet has reached 16 trucks as staff work seven days to tackle the garbage challenge.

Though the number of functional trucks at times dips by half, Minister of the Environment, Trevor Prescod was recently heard assuring the public they have a plan B in place.

“We are still in a bad situation with a limited amount of trucks being available… We have 16 trucks that are functional at present but on a regular basis during the day sometimes those numbers drop down by four or five trucks. On one occasion, we went down for a few days to eight trucks.”

Prescod was at the time speaking on Monday on a popular call-in programme. While on-air, he shared some details about what occurred when attempts were made by officials to source second-hand trucks from Halifax to boost the fleet. He additionally sought to assure the public that government has not given up on efforts to get “the adequate number of trucks in the island at least so that we can service the entire country.”

The Environment Minister also stated that measures currently have been put in place within the SSA to make sure that all is done to keep the environment clean within the island.

“What we have also been doing is rather than having one shift or so, sometimes two or three shifts and you probably see garbage trucks out on Saturdays, Sundays [and] bank holidays. Sometimes when a situation becomes extremely intense and excessive amounts of garbage or anything accumulate in some areas, we have a special service that will go off to that location and do the cleaning.”(MG)