Garbage still headache for Medan mayoralty
Garbage still headache for Medan mayoralty
Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan
The Medan administration is facing criticism from members of the
city council over its inability to manage the estimated 411 tons
of garbage produced in the city each day.
Councilors voiced their concerns during a plenary session on
Tuesday.
"We believe the Medan administration has failed and has not
been professional in handling the city's garbage," the council's
deputy speaker Ibrahim Sakti Batubara told The Jakarta Post.
The garbage is heaped up in nearly every corner of the city,
including along Medan's main thoroughfare. In some areas, such as
on Jl. Sukaramai, Jl. Halat and Jl. Jamin Ginting, the piles of
garbage have begun to spill into the streets, posing a traffic
hazard for motorists.
The garbage situation simply added to the problems being faced
by the administration in providing services to the public,
Ibrahim said, adding that garbage management was important, as it
related closely to public health issues.
When contacted separately, spokesman of the city
administration Arlan Nasution argued that limited resources meant
officials could only handle half of the total garbage produced.
"We only have 98 garbage trucks and 1,794 employees, and with
those limited resources we can only remove some 55 percent of the
total garbage daily," Arlan admitted.
The remaining 200 tons were left uncollected.
Arlan confessed that the accumulation of the garbage had been
particularly pronounced after garbage workers held a four-day
strike last week to demand better conditions.
Besides the resource limitations, the administration only has
two garbage dumping sites, in Namobintang subdistrict in Deli
Serdang and in Terjun subdistrict in Medan Labuhan, both located
some distance from the city.
"It takes around three hours to get from the two dumping sites
and back to the city," Arlan said.
In a bid to overcome the garbage problem, Medan Mayor Abdillah
had offered to hand over responsibility for the issue to district
and subdistrict administrations, beginning on Nov. 30, as part of
efforts to implement Law No 22/1999 on regional autonomy.
"It is expected that heads of districts and subdistricts would
be able to take full responsibility for the garbage problems in
their respective areas and not depend on the mayoralty," Arlan
said.
The proposal to shift responsibility for garbage management to
the lower administrations was also criticized by the council,
which said it would not be effective.
Councilor Ibrahim even proposed that garbage management be
handed over to a private third party, with the administration
assuming a control and monitoring role.