The Juba City Council authority is seeking for sufficient funding to facilitate the removal of the stockpiles of garbage seen in many residential suburbs and the Central Business District within the city.

The Chairperson of Juba City Legislative Assembly, Peter Loro Paulino, said waste management remained a challenge partly because the Juba City Council has not passed the budget for fiscal years in order to fund the garbage collection for the last year.

He said the municipal authority has been operating for the last two years without a mayor, which he said had contributed to the weak management of waste disposals within the city. 

“To solve this mess once and for all, it needs money,” Loro said, during an interview with City Review in his office in Juba.

“Garbage collection is still a problem because authorities are doing it as emergency and some of the activities is not fully operational.”

“We have the problem of trucks. We have only four trucks serving the whole city. Due to shortage of trucks garbage collection is not secure in all the residential areas,” he added.

Loro said there were many plans in place with the new mayor which include the upgrading of Juba into modern city.

“We have planned to bring many compactors and loaders. This will bring a lot of changes in the city,” he said. “We have already two more trucks because of the budget we cannot be able to hire,” he added.

Juba City Council Acting Chief Executive Officer, Charles Taban said the budget will follow the last year’s figure with little adjustment in the figure so that Juba City Council would run their activities fully without many challenges.

Recently, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry inked a clean Juba City project with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

The Undersecretary Ministry of Environment and Forestry, Joseph Bartel Africano, said the 5 million-dollar project will be for buying over 20 trucks and loaders, for creating water channels and construction of dumpsites and accessible roads to the sites outside Juba City.

He said the project will be fully implemented by Juba City council under the supervision of National Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

“We are done with signing some of the documents. It was only this pandemic delaying the project to start,” said Bartel.

Garbage snag

Garbage collection in Juba remained a big issue with tones of solid wastes generated by the city dwellers   since the economic hardship kicked in.

Juba City Council Authority tried to give some of the contracts to local firms so that they manage the collection but the arrangement proved futile.

JICA as well as UNICIEF in collaboration with Juba City Council has brought four compactors have been assisting in collecting the garbage along the streets and within the residential areas.

In another development, Juba City Council said the soaring water prices is expected to ease following the negotiation between the Authority of Juba Council and water purification companies and water tanker drivers.

Speaking on national broadcaster SSBC, Mayor Kalisto Ladu said the water problem will be soon resolved by reducing the prices of water per drum in various residential areas.

Last month, Juba City Council summoned water companies and water tanker owners over the high prices of water. Currently, water prices in residential areas across Juba remained high, despite the negotiation between the two companies with the parties.

Residential areas around River Nile are buying water at SSP500 per drum instead of SSP300, around Tombura road area at SSP600 instead of SSP350. In Munuki, Custom area, a drum retails at at SSP700 instead of 400, Gudele area SSP800-900 instead of SSP500 and Jebel Dinka and Jebel Yesua at 1,000 instead of SSP600.