THE SANITATION SERVICE AUTHORITY (SSA), hard-pressed to find money to buy trucks to collect garbage from households around the country, is renting the tractor it is using on the Mangrove Pond Landfill from a private firm for more than $23 000 a week.
SUNDAY SUN investigations revealed that for almost a year now the state agency has been renting the massive D9R Caterpillar tractor crawler from Brathwaite’s Construction, while two of its own specialised pieces of equipment were garaged, and a third had been “up and down” because of recurring mechanical problems.
According to one source involved in the sector, this meant that in the past year the SSA would have spent about $1.2 million to rent this tractor. However, explained another source, prior to this rental, the SSA had been utilising a similar piece of equipment from another major construction firm for several months, but for at least $5 000 less each week than it is now being charged by Brathwaite’s Construction.
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