Paynesville – Marketers at Gobachop field are calling on the Liberia Marketing Association (LMA) and the national government to come to their aid by removing the huge pile of garbage right in the heart of the market.
Report by Augustine T. Tweh – [email protected]
According to the marketers, the presence of the garbage has turned the market ground into a complete dump site; something they said is posing a serious threat to their health and businesses.
Speaking to FrontPageAfrica (FPA), Alex Bickersterth Coordinator of the Gobachop, waste management site said the presence of the dirt in the market is due to the failure of the machine operators to clean the dirt.
“The reason the dump site is park is because when we call the people to come take the dirt; they complained to us that they are having problem with President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf about their salary. Even though LMA President can give them allowance, but they are saying it is not sufficient to sustain their families,” he said.
He said the presence of the huge garbage is also due to the lack of the LMA to restrict people dumping dirt in the area, something he said needs a quick intervention to protect the market from further disaster.
“The dirt has been here since three weeks, and nobody to take it. People come from other places to waste their dirt here because no restriction on this place, when we try talking to them they do not listen to us.
In fact they can insult us and tell us that they don’t have any job to do besides wasting dirt for people” he added.
Tenneh Kollie, a business woman also told FPA that they usually pay 20 Liberian Dollars on a daily basis to the LMA for ticket before selling their market.
“We paid twenty Liberian Dollars every day to the LMA before selling, but they do not care about our health. The dirt is making us sick, as for me every evening I take medicine to help me recover for the next day before I can be normal to sell,” she lamented.
She said there have been series of complaints to the LMA for the removal of the dirt, but all efforts to draw the attention of the LMA have not materialized.
“We have been talking with the LMA to help us remove the dirt, but nobody is paying attention to us.
“So we are appealing to the government to come to our aid, because this is the only market place we have to do our business and send our children to school and feed our families,” she averred.
Hawa Kromah, a food seller in the market said the stench from the garbage hardly permits some of her customers to stand in the terrain up to one minute, something she said needs an emergency response to stop the pollution in the market.
“The smell of this dirt is so bad that I lost some of my customers on a daily basis, and not the smell alone, but also the flies and feces in this dirt can really embarrass me, especially when I start cooking.
So we are asking those responsible to clean this dirt to come to our aid, because the dirty water and flies is really causing problem to us to the extent that I can promise you if they do not remove this dirt, new sickness will surface from it” she said.
In an interview with FPA, Jones P.Y. Gibson, LMA Operation Superintendent at the Gobachop market said the LMA is putting mechanism into place to have the garbage removed from the market in the soonest possible time.
“Actually, the situation is deplorable that which we understand, but the management of the LMA is putting into place some mechanism to have the dirt removed in the soonest possible time.
Moreover we are talking with the Paynesville City Corporation (PCC) and the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) to help us remove the dirt,” he said.
Superintendent Gibson added that the road leading to the main disposal site in Wein Town is very deplorable; something he said is causing delay in removing the garbage from the market.
He also attributed stock pile of garbage in the market to surrounding communities, adding that the LMA spends over 46,000 Liberian Dollars weekly to remove garbage in the market.
“We can manage our wastes, but our surrounding communities do not have dump site so everybody is using the market side as a garbage site.
Moreover, the market yard is not fenced so even if you instruct securities to keep people from disposing waste here, you will still experience it because they will come over night,” he said.