Jeddah Mayor Abdullah Al-Muallami recently admitted there was a garbage-collection crisis. The accumulated and uncollected garbage is embarrassing to his office, and so he is holding meetings, morning and night, in search of a way out.
Al-Muallami added that an emergency team is carefully monitoring the situation on an hour by hour basis.
Despite the mayor’s admissions and statements, the situation in the city’s streets is worsening and has fallen to an unprecedented level, reminding people of the cleaning workers’ strike in New York some time ago. The underlying reason for such a crisis in Jeddah, the Bride of the Red Sea, is not clear. In New York, there was a strike by workers demanding higher wages; here in Jeddah no strike has been reported.
Cleaning contracts are awarded to private companies on a long-term basis so that they will make good returns on the investments required in order to buy special equipment, garbage containers and special trucks.
We all know that garbage collection is a gold mine for contractors; we also all know that the contractors pay disgracefully low wages to their workers who are all foreigners. In many cases, the workers are dependent on charitable gifts from the public in order to buy food. In the present instance, the workers are most emphatically not to blame.
The present problem developed shortly after the announcement of a new contractor. The new company was supposed to begin work from the second week of this month. One possible explanation for the problem is that the old contractor simply lost interest in working, as his contract was not renewed. He stopped working and began laying off his workers and packing up equipment well before the end of the contract. The result was that uncollected garbage was soon piled up in the streets. Cats and other animals picking through the containers soon spread garbage all over the streets; the stench was terrible and the possibility of disease very real.
If the assumption that the old contractor simply stopped working, the mayor’s office should hold back his financial dues as a punitive measure. The money should be used for emergency measures. A signed contract must be followed until the last date specified, particularly in a sensitive area which is directly related to public health. Any violation of the contract should be viewed very seriously. It is a crime against the country and all its people. All payments should be withheld from the irresponsible contractor and certainly no contract should be awarded to the company in future.
A point to wonder about: In his comments, the mayor told the media that there was perfect understanding between the old and new contractors. If this is so, then how has the whole city become a vast garbage dump? Who is responsible? Will those responsible be punished?
