KARACHI: The Sindh Solid Waste Management Board (SSWMB) is learnt to have decided to issue a final 15-day show-cause notice to the Chinese company tasked with the disposal of solid waste in districts West and Malir for rescinding the contract due to the company’s poor performance.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Sunday that the notice to the Hangzhou Jinjiang Group Sanitation Services Company Ltd, which was awarded the contract in Oct 2017 for front-end collection and disposal of garbage in the city’s two districts, would be third in row as earlier notices were issued on July 18 and Dec 5, 2018, respectively, for unsatisfactory performance.

They said that over 2,400 tonnes garbage was generated daily in West district, while the contracting firm was collecting only half of it before it suspended its operation a week ago.

The SSWMB is going to issue a final show-cause notice to the Hangzhou Jinjiang Group

A spokesperson for the SSWMB said that the final notice to the Chinese firm would be issued in a couple of days as it was still under legal process and approval from the competent authority.

Violation of agreement

She said that the contracting firm did not make investment for solid waste management as per the agreement. “They inducted only 40 per cent machinery and 20 per cent staff”, she added.

The spokesperson said that the performance of the contracting firm had never been satisfactory as there were always heaps of garbage in the two districts.

She said that the SSWMB was managing the disposal of garbage in the vicinity through alternative resources with the assistance of the district municipal committee-West to ease out the situation.

They said that the Supreme Court-mandated water commission had also taken notice of the low performance of the company and called its chief executive officer for explanation.

SSWMB Managing Director A. D. Sanani told Dawn that the Chinese firm did not perform as per standards set in the contract. “It also failed to bring required machinery and gear for solid municipal waste despite assurance before the water commission,” he added.

The sources said that the contracting firm had requested the water commission for one-month time for improving its working in March, but it did not show any substantial improvement.

They said that the door-to-door component of front end collection of solid municipal waste was the core item of the contract with the Chinese firm.

The sources said that the contracting firm was required to do extensive and unceasing operations to removal of garbage from the doorsteps of people and sweeping of main roads, streets, lanes, footpaths and open spaces, and to bring the garbage to dustbins for further disposal to the 500-acre Jam Chakro landfill site, some 30-35 kilometres from the city’s centre.

They said that no proper mechanism for public awareness for proper garbage disposal devised by the contractor as per agreement, causing poor waste management.

The sources said that the machinery, vehicles, equipment, containers and bins were very short of quantity as per the agreement with the contractor.

They said that the containers and bins were also short of the specified quantity mentioned in the contract and their unplanned placement on different places also increased the severity of the issue.

Garbage lifting not even begins in four islands

The sources said, the contractor did not start its operation in four islands — Shamspir, Baba, Bhit and Salihabad — within the limits of West district as per the agreement.

According to a representative of the Chinese firm, the operation in the islands could not start due to issue of transportation of municipal solid waste from there.

He said that the firm suspended its operation due to non-payment of its dues to the provincial authorities. “We will resume our operation, once our dues are cleared”, he said.

Residents of West district said that piles of garbage were playing havoc with their lives as manual sweeping of primary roads, secondary main roads, streets and narrow lanes was not carried out for days.

Unsatisfactory performance in Malir

As for Malir, the sources said that the company’s performance was also unsatisfactory as it did not meet the required standards at any stage since the execution of the contract.

They said that there was a huge shortage of at least 200 sanity workers in the Malir district, while most of the machinery of the company was out of order.

The city’s solid waste management was extricated from the hands of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation by the provincial government in 2014 through the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board Act-2013 adopted by the Sindh Assembly.

The SSWMB contracted out garbage collection, taking it to the landfill sites, as well as sweeping streets, to a Chinese company for two districts, East and South, and to another Chinese company for Malir and West, out of total six districts of the city for a period of seven years.

The garbage collection and disposal of districts Central and Korangi is being carried out by their respective DMCs.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2019