Mayor blames waste dumping in Male’ streets on WAMCO’s failure

Residents of Male’ are forced to dump household waste in streets because of the failure of Waste Management Corporation (WAMCO) to properly fulfil its responsibilities, says Male’ City Mayor Adam Azim.

In an episode of SSTV’s ‘Baaru Hathareh’, which aired on Sunday night, Azim criticized WAMCO’s services.

He accused the corporation of negligence in the provision of waste collection and disposal services at households, despite its clear mandate.

Azim said that he finds the disruption of waste collection from households by using incidents such as last month’s fire at the waste disposal site in K. Thilafushi as an “excuse” completely unacceptable.

He said that the WAMCO should have a plan in place to ensure the continued provision of services in face of such incidents.

“WAMCO existed long before the council was established. But WAMCO has been seriously neglectful in fulfilling its responsibilities. It doesn’t pay attention of any of its responsibilities. This is why people dump household waste in streets,” he said.

Azim said that instead of fulfilling its responsibilities, WAMCO is busy blaming others for their failures.

He called acts of trading blame by heads of state companies “highly uncivilized.”

Azim said the city council was engaged in multiple efforts to make Male’ a clean city, with council workers cleaning the streets on a daily basis.

But he said that the council was facing challenges in cleaning Hulhumale’ because the island has yet to be handed over to them.

“Its best to resign if anyone is unable to fulfil the responsibilities they are entrusted with,” said Azim, continuing his criticism of WAMCO.

Azim said that the city council has received complaints that WAMCO sometimes takes a week to collect waste when called by households.

He said that the city council has yet to receive a satisfactory response to letters and phone calls seeking a meeting with senior officials of WAMCO to reach a solution to the issues.

Azim said that the city council was mandating with managing Male’, and that the failure of WAMCO was forcing the council to take on the costly responsibility of disposing of the waste dumped in the streets as well.