By Hassan I. Conteh
Sierra Leone’s capital city, Freetown, is one of the filthiest cities in sub-Sahara Africa, according to those that have travelled around the world. Since the country had her independence in 1961, the nation has successively tumbled under black leadership. Once a cleanest colony in West Africa, in the 1940s, it is now believed to be the dirtiest of all.
Freetown, which used to be one of the decent places to live, has lost its respect among other West Africa nations. It has almost been reduced to a ranch, to the extent that many visitors now consider it as one of the worst countries to live in.
The city is still grappling with unkempt public places like hospitals, schools and offices. In fact, it has become a normal practice to see dirt thrown out on the streets by unscrupulous citizens. Most of the streets have even become prone to erosion as gutters are clogged by mountainous rubbish. A visit to some public offices, especially the Sierra Leone Agricultural Research Institute (SLARI), by this press, sends a worrying signal.
A worrying signal, that if a facelift is not given to most of our public structures, many would crumble down as they are left unpainted, not cleaned and maintained for years. The roads in Freetown and most private compounds are nothing good to write home about, as they evaporate with suffocating stench. It is the habit of most non-abiding citizens to dispose of waste materials on the streets with a sense of disregard for the environment.
Although the Freetown City Council (FCC) has statutory powers to levy fines on defaulters, there’s hardly any instance where people get arrested for flouting the city’s sanitary by-laws. Those by-laws only seem to exist in the Council’s shelves and gathering dust. City Mayors, past and present, have not done enough to clean up an already filthy city.
However, there have been attempts to clear off the rubbish from the slums by FCC’s current administration, headed by Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer. But the questions many residents of Freetown have been asking are: If the city’s centre remains dirty, why would the focus be on the slums whose rubbish have decayed for a number of years? Is FCC really serious about transforming Freetown when market places and some streets swell up with dirt?
Enquiring more about the recent cleaning project in Freetown, FCC’s Sanitation Team member, Mustapha Kemokai, was contacted by this press, but he evaded all the questions raised. “I will get back to you later; please wait I will have to talk to my Deputy for the information,” he responded via a WhatsApp chat.
Bankrupt FCC
The shabby state of the country’s capital city is attributed to poor condition of service for workers. Unlike other countries, such as Rwanda, Ghana and Nigeria, which lay huge premium on employees to keep their cities clean, Sierra Leone is a different case altogether.
For instance, the salary of waste management personnel, in Freetown, is ‘chicken-change,’ so meagre. Samuel, a Ghanaian national, employed by FCC’s garage at Kissy Brook, is tired of the sickening conditions of service. He was sick while being interviewed. His colleague too was suffering from a severe cold caught from night work.
“We bail rubbish on streets from 3: 00 midnight till dawn. And when you complain about cold Council don’t take you to hospital. If you fail to work for a day, they cut down from your little salary,” he explained.
However, 6 FCC’s wastes collectors man the city, but with no medical pensions, a situation that have caused many to have met their untimely deaths. Samuel and others, who’ve served the Council for close to ten years, have not received a single dose in spite of their poor health conditions.
Salt to their injuries
Adding salt to their existing injuries is late payment.
“You work, but you don’t know which time they will pay you. Some of our colleagues have worked for 15 years as casual workers,” he added.
The impermanent workers (casual workers) get paid for a day’s work. “If you miss a day, they strike out your name,” said Samuel.
Samuel who had abandoned Ghana for a long period of time now wishes to return home. But where could he raise the money for the ticket gets him worried the most.
Owing to their lateness on the street, while cleaning the rubbish, he caught pneumonia with his endocrine glands swelling. The abysmal conditions of workers could be linked to the dirt seen on the streets.
“Sometimes, we see rubbish but don’t have the courage to go clear it,” they said.
To alleviate their suffering, an NGO, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), was paying them each Le1,200,000, an equivalent of $115. But the waste collectors allege that corrupt officials, within FCC’s garage, cut the money. “We only get Le 700,000 per month,” they claimed.
However, FCC’s officials were not available for an interview despite efforts being made to get their responses on the matter.
For Samuel, including other drivers, they don’t have plenty vehicles to do their work effectively. Most of them have worked for at least 15 years but without being permanent. “If Council rectifies our plights, the city will forever be clean,” warned Samuel.
Alimu Kamara, one of the drivers, highlighted other changes faced with community people at Benz garage. He said people are in the habit of dumping the dirt from their homes to the stationary trucks, which are undergoing maintenance. FCC still battles with fewer tricycles and trucks to deposit the wastes at various dumping sites.
Over the years, the intervention of the People’s Republic of China helped minimize the dirt on some parts in the city as they donated garbage trucks to Sierra Leone’s government. But a tricycle waste collector rider said lack of repairing them got them dysfunctional.
Roughly, among the 80 tricycles specially assigned for the city, only seven are functional, others have gone beyond repairs, he claimed. And authorities don’t seem bothered to get them running again thereby collecting the waste. They can’t even buy a nut let alone some vehicular parts to overhaul the whole system.
FCC can’t be blamed. Because the central government doesn’t allocate to them enough budget, something that affects their activities. Quite recently, Council staff from the headquarters took to the streets demanding a four month unpaid salary. The driver, Alimu, could not stop talking about the derelict vehicles.
“There used to be 7 trucks, but only 4 are functional. Others have broken down. Mine has taken a month now; they don’t repair it unless when I borrowed money from my wife to get it fixed up,” says Alimu.
Until the government of Sierra Leone seriously addresses the poor conditions of service for waste collectors and employ more and provide more vehicles and do regular maintenance on them, Freetown will forever be dirty like a ranch.