By SAH TERENCE ANIMBOM
Inhabitants of the Bamenda in the North West Region of Cameroon have heaved a heavy sigh of relief from awful smells caused by abandoned street garbage, following the commendable act of cooperate social responsibility carried out by Edge Enterprise. The company decided to mobilize over seventy (70) of its staff and road construction equipment to clear off the despicable piles of decomposing garbage from the streets of the city. The exercise began on Friday June 28, 2019 and was meant to run for 48 hours.
Inhabitants of Old Church Azire, New Church Azire, Bali Park, Ntarinkon, Food Market, Commercial Avenue, Foncha Street, Ntahmbesi Junction and the PMI area have so far already benefited from this gesture from Edge Enterprise which they term very timely and much appreciable. However, by the end of Saturday June 29, 2019, other areas like Ghana and Cow Streets had not yet benefited from the exercise. The management of Edge has decided to extend from the initial 48 hours to 72 hours so as to completely clear the city of Bamenda from street garbage.
The name Bamenda in the country for some time now has represented insecurity, kidnappings, killings, constant gunshots and for the last seven months decaying and abandoned tons of piles of refuse. Household garbage as well as garbage from shops has been piled and repeatedly piled for the last seven months in major streets and road junctions from Ntarinkon to Chuobuh, Azire new Church to Azire Old Church just beside the Bamenda Regional Hospital causing very nose bashing stenches.
In some cases like in Ntarinkon market and Food Market, as well as Commercial Avenue, the refuse piles became so huge and stretched over a distance of about 20 meters each and amounting to over 400 tons of refuse. It was observed that some market women displayed their vegetables just centimeters away from the heaps with healthy over fed flies partying all over the place. A woman had a situation at the Nkwen Market rubbish heap last week after consuming food around the refuse pile. Reports say she started vomiting immediately after consuming fruits she bought just from someone beside her.
A food stuffs vendor at the Bamenda food market regretted: “The waste management company has not been here for about six months now and I was totally helpless”. He continued that “I cannot thank Edge enterprise enough for this work they are doing in town today. I pray that God should bless them”.
The SUN newspaper spoke to the CEO of Edge Enterprise Tachang Pius who personally supervised the exercise: “What we are doing is a free exercise with the intention of fighting against health epidemics. We all live in Bamenda and cannot wait until somebody who is supposed to clean our streets comes to do it. If there is a health epidemic now we will all be affected, so it is the question of doing what is right”.
He went on to say that “Talking about the monetary value of what we have so far done, we can estimate it at close to 35million Francs CFA, taking into consideration the personnel, the equipment and fuel used.”
It should be noted that the military under the command of General Agha Robinson have twice gone down to the streets to clean off the dirt in a bid to help the stranded population, abandoned by Hysacam, the sole waste management company in the region which abandoned work after two of its trucks were set ablaze by suspected separatist fighters over seven months ago.