Editorial | Whither NSWMA?

The recent call by Kingston’s mayor, Andrew Swaby, for Jamaica’s municipal corporations to be given responsibility for garbage collection reminds of the long-running saga about the future and the structure of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), and the failure of the Holness administration to achieve its promised divestment of the agency.

Although, to be fair, the Government hasn’t spoken much about the issue in recent times. This may suggest that the matter is no longer a policy aim.

That, however, doesn’t mean that solid waste management is no longer a major problem in Jamaica. Hurricane Melissa emphasised that it is.

In that regard, and in the face of Mr Swaby’s suggestions, either Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness or his local government minister, Desmond McKenzie, should provide an update on the administration’s current thinking on the question: whether it is still pursuing the divestment of the Riverton City landfill in Kingston; and if it still believes, like Mr Gordon, that the preferred role for the NSWMA is as regulator.

Mayor Swaby gets his title from his chairmanship of the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), the largest and most influential of the island’s 13 parish governments. Its jurisdiction includes the capital city and adjoining St Andrew parish.

In common with residents and the leaders of most of the municipalities, Mr Swaby isn’t satisfied with the job the NSWMA does in collecting solid waste, a shortcoming that has been exacerbated by the passage of Hurricane Melissa in October.

OVER FOUR MILLION TONNES OF DEBRIS

The Category 5 storm hit Jamaica’s western and southwestern parishes, damaging or destroying over 100,000 homes, plus other buildings and infrastructure. It is estimated to have left more than four million tonnes of debris, more solid waste than the NSWMA usually collects islandwide over a whole year. And that doesn’t include the garbage which people, including in western Jamaica, continue to generate since the hurricane.

Despite engaging private truckers and co-opting other state agencies to help with debris removal in the hurricane-hit parishes, the NSWMA, if not overwhelmed, has struggled to get the job done.

That is part of the backdrop to which Mr Swaby suggested that municipalities should be allowed to take charge of their solid waste collection, while the NWSMA assumes what was intended to be its primary role when it was established a quarter of a century ago: that of regulator.

According to Mayor Swaby, the NSWMA – 16 per cent of whose pre-hurricane budget of J$5.3 billion was to come from property taxes – doesn’t perform well enough for the municipalities, although they contribute to its funding. He believes that the local governments, especially his own, would do a better job.

“The local authority will then be empowered to contract private operators to deliver the service,” Mr Swaby said. “The NSWMA would focus on ensuring standards are met, regulations are enforced and that the system operates efficiently.”

As it now stands, the NSWMA is both the service provider and industry regulator. It fumbles on both.

The tensions between the two roles is obvious, aggravated by the Government’s inability to properly fund the organisation to buy sufficient garbage trucks or to operate modern, well-structured landfills, where waste is separated and recycling is part of the regime.

NSWMA DIVESTMENT

Indeed, the question of divesting garbage collection and landfill management, especially Riverton City, has been on the agenda for more than a decade, starting with the previous People’s National Party (PNP) administration, which invited expressions of interest in the divestment.

When his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) administration returned to office in 2016, Prime Minister Holness embraced the idea. He named an enterprise team to pursue either an outright sale or a public/private partnership.

Among the ideas canvassed was generating energy from waste.

Over the years, there have been many declarations of deals being close, such as the prime minister’s July 2022 declaration: “You are also going to hear about the divestment of the collection of garbage, which will mean you will now be bringing in private sector know-how and private sector management to collect garbage. The NSWMA will, therefore, focus on its real role, which is that of regulator … .”

The following year, Dr Holness again dealt with the NSWMA divestment at the annual conference of his party, telling the closing public session: “It is going to bring new investments into garbage compactors and it’s going to bring new management to the process of garbage collection. The role of the NSWMA will move from that of a service provider to that of a regulator. So what they will do is to ensure service quality is delivered from the private garbage collector.”

In 2023, the NSWMA’s executive director, Audley Gordon, conceded to legislators at a parliamentary committee hearing that he, too, believed the agency’s appropriate role was as a regulator.

“The ideal thing is to get the NSWMA into the regulatory stuff,” he said. “We should not be dabbling the way we are, in the operation.”

So, what’s the problem?