By Keji Janefer
Some traders at Customs Market are calling upon Juba City Council to regularly collect garbage in the markets in Juba, the capital city of South Sudan which got independent in 2011, was estimated to have 1.5 million populations.
Some illegal waste dumping is observed on the streets in Juba city, and the wastes generated from the households is not properly managed.
In November 2017, ‘Cleanup Campaign’ was conducted in Kator Block in Juba city by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), 150 residents participated, and illegally dumped waste was removed from the market area in the block. The collected garbage became 250 backs, and 5 trucks were filled up with this garbage.
In 2019 Juba City Council advocated for door to door garbage collection in the city urging people to cooperate with garbage collectors to reduce epidemic diseases.
The biggest concern now is that, some traders at custom have accused Juba City Council of collecting money from traders for garbage collection in the market, but they don’t collect the garbage.
Najua Kenyi is one of the women selling vegetables at customs market and she is also a representative of women who sell vegetables. She said Juba City Council only collects money and they don’t want to collect garbage. “Now the market is dirty, the streets are dirty and all the markets are dirty, this is because no official place for dumping garbage was allocated for them. And that is why they are dumping garbage in any empty space within the market” said Najua.
“When we want to dump garbage, we just dump them in the empty shops” Najua said. Najua added that this issue of garbage is affecting them so much saying, at first they were paying 20 SSP for garbage collection and now they pay 100 SSP every day. “If they collect the garbage there is no problem even the 100 SSP that we pay will not pain us but they don’t cooperate with us” she emphasized.
Najua expressed fear over cholera as the rainy season approaches and urged Juba City Council to collect garbage and organize the market.
Flora Tomalu, who owns a local restaurant in customs market, said City Council is supposed to collect the garbage even if on weekly basis instead of dumping them inside the market making the market smelly and it is not good for human health because this is where all kinds of goods are sold including food. Flora however, suggested that the government allocate a dumping site for garbage outside in order to keep the market clean.
Meanwhile, Gideon Santo, Head of Workers and Public Affairs in Juba City Legislative Council, confirmed to Number Citizen Newspaper in an interview that, lack of enough trucks to collect garbage in the city is to blame and he said there are new trucks that have been hired by the government and they are on the way coming. “Good enough JICA has help us with vehicles which will help Juba City Council to continue with its work like before” Santo said.
He added that Juba City Council, gold workers’ union and blockers have conflict over who should collect money for collecting garbage in the market. He said that is the reason, it is hard for the legislature to understand who is responsible to collect garbage.
Gideon urged people who are selling in the market not to burn rubbish inside the market because it cause pollution and may even lead to burning of the whole market.
He further said the government is going to allocate a piece of land where a hole will be dug for dumping garbage and the legislature will summon Juba city council and gold to answer who is to collect garbage in the city.