Executive Director of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), Audley Gordon, has announced that by the end of the calendar year, all employees of the agency will have full pension benefits.
Mr. Gordon was addressing the official opening of WPM Waste Management Limited’s new building in Ironshore, St. James, on Tuesday (April 8).
“It’s one thing to have nice offices; it’s another thing to have good wages but what about when you get old and can’t work anymore? I am to report this morning that we have met with Sagicor; we have arrived at certain decisions with them but we didn’t want to go too fast ahead of ourselves,” he said.
“We met with a core team of people from across the four regions; we settled on certain things. I’m to tell you that before this year, and I’m talking this calendar year, every staff at the NSWMA would have full pension benefits,” Mr. Gordon informed.
He further noted that several contract workers of the agency have been made permanent staff members.
“The NSWMA is reporting this morning that nearly 2,000 people… I signed permanent letters for them across Jamaica,” he noted.
“This will take them out of this uncertainty of contract work to where they can plan their lives now and they can make life-changing decisions financially because they know where the bread is coming from, once they go to work and do their work,” Mr. Gordon said.
For his part, Mayor of Montego Bay, Councillor Richard Vernon, outlined that WPM continues to have a fruitful relationship with the St. James Municipal Corporation.
“One that I will mention is the MoBay Step Up programme that was set up last year, and we’ve been working together to rid the city of the vehicles, of illegal dump sites, keeping things clean and together,” he said.
“We have done well to ensure that our city is clean. As a matter of fact, if you walk our city and as far as you can go across the municipality in the mornings, it’s clean like a whistle. I want to commend the sweepers, the truck drivers, the sidemen, all those who are working hard to ensure that our health is preserved, and our city is clean,” Councillor Vernon said.
He noted, however, that there is more work to be done in terms of garbage collection in Montego Bay and outlined that the Jamaica Fire Brigade (JFB) will be engaged to wash the streets more frequently.