DERELICT VEHICLES that owners failed to dump after being served with notices to do so, will be removed at the owners’ expense in a Government-staged operation due to begin this week.
Minister of Environment and National Beautification Trevor Prescod gave notice of this during last Friday’s Estimates Debate, while responding to a question from Member of Parliament for St Michael North West Neil Rowe.
It was the Ministry of Environment’s turn to field questions about its operations from the Well of the House, when Rowe asked what action was being taken to deal with the many derelict vehicles and buildings around Barbados that had become eyesores.
Giving the assurance the programme would be “off the ground next week”, Prescod explained: “We had to adhere to a number of prerequisites because we want to operate within the law, so we had to give adequate notice to persons who owned the derelict vehicles and derelict homes.”
He added that “over 400 to 500 vehicles will be removed from the landscape” to rid Barbados of a problem that had been plaguing it over ten to 12 years, and which had contributed to an increase in the rat population.
Director of the Environmental Protection Department (EPD), Anthony Headley, informed the House that “the necessary administrative mechanisms had been put in place”, identification processes had been carried out and the various notices as required by law had been served.
He added the EPD was concerned about the safety of its staff as they went around serving notices and marking vehicles, and would be requesting assistance from the Royal Barbados Police Force to ensure their safety and that of the contractors whose vehicles would be engaged in the removals.
“It has been brought to my attention that some of those (derelict) vehicles have been used in a nefarious manner in terms of storage of illegal items, and some of my staff have within recent times undergone threats,” Headley reported. (GC)
MINISTER OF ENVIRONMENT and National Beautification
Trevor Prescod. (FP)
