The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

ENVIRONMENT Minister Zane Lightbourne has warned garbage collection contractors that the government will suspend or remove delinquent operators from routes, saying companies that lack the equipment or reliability to do the job properly could lose their contracts.

Mr Lightbourne said on Friday that suspensions are already underway, though he declined to publicly identify the companies involved.

His comments came after questions about whether delinquent garbage collectors were being penalised. He confirmed they were, but said he would not yet name the companies at fault. However, he said he was prepared to make the information public if doing so would help fix the problem.

He warned that the government would cancel contracts for companies found to have insufficient resources or to have been derelict in their duties.

“We're asking persons, if you want to get in the garbage collection business, go and see first of all, what the business is about, and get your necessary training and equipment, and make sure that you have reliable equipment to undertake and make the investment, and seek those avenues to do this properly,” Mr Lightbourne said.

“Because we are going to continue suspending operators and eventually expelling operators from routes and contracts are coming to an end shortly. And the evaluation will be taking place cumulatively of what you would have done in your performance over the last few years. So we're looking forward to that to that end in some of these areas that we have to constantly send in substitutes to address delinquencies.”

Mr Lightbourne also announced a crackdown on illegal coal mining sites, saying his ministry would target illicit operations while seeking to safely take over and regulate the coal industry as an alternative to illegal coal production.

He announced BARWAN, an environmental enforcement unit under the police that will detect environmental crime and bring perpetrators to justice.

He called for public help in reporting illegal coal mining and said law enforcement should increase surveillance of suspected illicit activity. He warned that people caught breaking the law would face strict penalties.

“We’re going to offer to the public an alternative of seeking out these illegal coal, the illegal coal industry, because of maybe favourable pricing, in order to deter persons from going the route of cutting down our trees illegally and burning them,” Mr Lightbourne said.

“We have stiff penalties on the books, and we also implementing under this budget spot fines for persons, not only in infractions that include littering, but illegal dumping, and so when we find people who may be out there burning coal, we can charge them with any number of things, including harming the environment, but the litter is causing the destruction of property, the degradation of possible degradation of the water table. We're going to push the full extent of the law to these persons who we catch when we catch them.”

Last February, two illegal charcoal manufacturing sites were shut down by the government in the Golden Isles constituency after residents complained about their impact on environmental and community health.