Once again the Sanitation Service Authority (SSA) is in the spotlight over its inability to adequately collect garbage across the country. Again the problem has to do with its inability to muster enough working trucks each day.
?What makes this situation particularly unacceptable to us is that just eight months ago Minister of the Environment Dr Denis Lowe and the SSA’s management were showing off a dozen new trucks the agency had just acquired.
Today they can get hardly get half a dozen more than that number of trucks on the road.
In recent years the SSA has lost a lot of its reputation as one of the most efficiently run and productive statutory corporations in Barbados and the consistency of poor service these days could soon result in Barbadians just simply not remembering its previous high standing.
But why is this occurring, and is there any comparison with what is taking place with other state corporations like the Transport Board?
In seeking to answer this question we can’t help but wonder if the acquisition patterns of the Government have contributed in any way to these now chronic problems. When the modus operandi of an agency like the SSA, which operates fleets of vehicles, is to acquire large numbers at once it is inevitable that breakdowns and the need for replacement will also occur en masse.
Government and its agencies need to reorder their business in such a manner that there is a sensible annual replacement programme, ensuring that fleets are made up of appliances of varying ages and life expectancies.
When the SSA, which traditionally has a fleet of no more than three dozen trucks, continues to run them into the ground and then replace a dozen or even as many as 20 all at once it is begging for a repeat four or five years down the line.
Juxtapose this against the astronomically poor service commuters are now getting from the Transport Board, the poor state of repair of its fleet, and the disclosure earlier this week that it is now looking for a supplier for 100 new buses. One hundred new buses this year will mean 100 old buses will have to be replaced in eight to ten years — or whatever their lifespan is given to be.
Again we ask: Why is it so difficult to have a decent fleet replacement programme that is based on the sensible retirement of a reasonable number of units annually?
While we are at it, we also make the point that while the management of the SSA has to be held responsible in the final analysis for the quality of service delivered, the staff who work these trucks must also shoulder some of the blame.
These days it is not unusual to be awoken by the SSA’s “ZR drivers” who seem to get pleasure out of trying to make music with the truck engines as they play with the clutch and gas pedals.
Additionally, the sharp stopping and jackrabbit starting over distances of just a couple of feet as they go house to house now seems commonplace.
These agencies must do better to manage their fleets as well as those who operate them because in the end the taxpayers will pay with poor service and high taxes and fees.
We once did much better and it can’t be that hard to return to such a place.
