INTENSE Mosquito Clean-up On Track, my foot! This headline on Page 5A of the Midweek Nation just caught my attention and I had to read the article and “stupse”.
Why doesn’t the Government start by cleaning up its own property? Since last year I have been trying to get the National Housing Corporation (NHC) to clean up its large, overgrown vacant lot at Eckstein Village, St Michael.
In addition, I have been calling sanitation on behalf of a neighbour to get some solid waste removed from a small area at the same location.
Mosquitoes killing us
The mosquitoes down here killing us and the African snails have moved in.
Last December NHC told me that the corporation had one Bobcat, which I thought was incredible for an organisation that services an entire country, and therefore could not clear the property at the time but would do so early in the New Year.
I should have asked which year.
I started calling and checking again from February and finally a gentleman came about a week and a half ago (this is now August) to see the area as it was unknown to him.
I called him this morning and he told me that he did check with the legal department as to whether or not the land was owned by NHC and that indeed it was.
He then advised me to write a letter to the general manager and outline the problem and to make the request to have it cleared.
But right after our conversation I picked up the Nation and when I saw the article I knew I had to write.
On two occasions earlier this year I even made face-to-face requests to the parliamentary representative and one of those conversations took place in front of the said area.
He saw the overgrown bush and the refuse for himself, but alas, nothing. I called the environmental officer at the Black Rock Polyclinic months ago and he told me to call Sanitation.
Bobcat needed
I called Sanitation Refuse Collection which sent out an open-back truck to pick up the refuse but the gentleman said that a Bobcat was needed.
I’ve been calling them every once in a while to remind them of the case, but alas, nothing. So now that I have offloaded on you and feel a lot better for doing so, I will go and write the general manager of the NHC.
KAREN WALCOTT
