The National Assembly member for Banjul North, Hon. Alagie Sillah raised concerns about rubbish collection in Banjul, claiming that there has been no such collection for up to seven months. The response of the Banjul City Council was swift and they claimed that collection was regular.
This reporter was assigned to find out the concerns and opinions of the residents of Banjul. The interviews were conducted during weekend.
Speaking to Foroyaa, Oumie Mboob residing at Banjul Central highlighted that the City council used to collect their garbage twice a week, mainly on Tuesdays and Thursday.
“This garbage collection was very effective then, but now sometimes the collection is once in a week or even once in a month,” she remarked.
She said their rubbish is still at home uncollected after the Tobaski prayers.
She further appealed to the council not to stay for more than two days without collecting their garbage.
Another thing she pointed out is the illegal waste dumping in certain areas of Banjul, specifically the demolished Odeon cinema at Lasso Warf.
Oumie noted that she is very much concerned about this, noting that people come from different places to dump their waste their especially at night.
“This waste is polluting the environment and the council should try and take a step to address this issue,” she remarked.
Isatou Njie in Banjul North Constituency noted that they burn their garbage at the back of their compound.
Asked why they burn it, in response Isatou said “We produce a lot of garbage, in our compound, and sometimes it takes some days before it is collected; so we just collect it and take it to the Tan Bi wet land and burn it there.”
She said she knows that burning has some environmental implications; however they are left with no choice but to do so.
“If our garbage spends three days in our compound it makes the environment very uncomfortable to live in,” she lamented.
She further said that BCC used to collect garbage twice a week but now, it sometimes takes them one week or so to collect it.
Similar remarks were made by Fatou Conteh who is also a resident of Banjul North, Tobacco road; she noted that they also burn their waste at their back yard.
Ngui Njie, a lady from Banjul North Tobacco road Talifabala, noted that the City council garbage collectors used to collect their garbage almost four times in a week.
However she cited that the only challenge they face is during weekend as their garbage is not sometimes collected.
“Apart from that, we are experiencing a little problem, I know there is a constraint with the council sometimes, but I am urging them to improve on those constraints by collecting the garbage daily,” she suggests.
Muhammed Ndow, a resident of Banjul Central also said the BCC used to collect their garbage twice a week.
“There was a time that for some weeks, we couldn’t see the garbage collectors, so I used to dispose my garbage every weekend,” he disclosed.
He urged the council to have more garbage compactor vehicles rather than trucks or tractors which do not last long.
Isatou Touray in Banjul South noted that they used to see the garbage collectors every two days, or sometimes 3 times a week.
She also raised concern regarding indiscriminate dumping on the streets, and isolated places within the City.
She called for urgent help to solve this problem.
