This content was published on June 19, 2022 – 9:55 pm June 19, 2022 – 9:55 pm
Panama City, June 19 (EFE) .- The “garbage crisis” in the Panamanian capital is caused by the failure of an inefficient and backward operating model for the collection and disposal of waste, stressed this Sunday the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture of Panama ( CCIAP).
The garbage problem in Panama City, which has only one outdoor landfill, has worsened in recent months due to a lack of compaction trucks, while last week a strike by the “little ants,” the staff who collect and clean the streets, increased was recorded , further aggravated the crisis.
For the CCIAP, trash goes beyond a truck shortage at Panama’s Municipal and Home Sanitization Authority (AAUD), “it’s the failure of the model” and the “sad example” of the consequences citizens pay when “political solutions.” for eminently technical problems”.
The “heavy price” of this failure, according to CCIAP, is being paid by citizens living in “sick and unhealthy” environments; the private company that in its attempt to reactivate businesses “collides with the ineffectiveness of such a critical component”; the state with new health crises and the negative impact on its tourism promotion; and the workers who cannot specialize and from time to time have to go on strike to improve their conditions”, “because this is the method that the current way of management favors the collection of waste”.
The union also highlights that for years taxpayers in Panama have been denied a “serious and efficient service” by being forced upon them by “politics, lack of transparency and operating models of the past”, resulting in the “crisis-in-crisis” system.
According to CCIAP, cities around the world whose population and waste volumes are “hundreds of times larger” have solved their waste management “on the basis of professional management by institutions or companies specialized in the matter”.
“And we’re not just talking about the basic task of collecting waste, but also converting it into recycling programs and even through power generation for cities,” said the CCIAP, which brings together about 1,800 companies from 15 economic sectors in Panama.
But the trade association warns that “it won’t be long before the politicized administration’s preferred solution emerges: buy more trucks, increase budgets,” that is, spend more resources on the model that has only brought “inefficiency.”
Entrepreneurs go even further, considering that in the same city that “is unable to adequately collect and dispose of its garbage,” daily “the passage of dozens of ships; Hundreds of flights in Latin America’s most important air hub; or thousands of passengers in the region’s only subway system”.
In this sense, the CCIAP advocates the implementation of both public and private models of transparent, professional and specialized administration on this matter, “without harmful political action”. EFE
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