Sindh to tax people for garbage collection, expand SSWMB
The board was working in only 4 Karachi divisions
Photo: Obair Khan/ SAMAA Digital
Its name was Sindh Solid Waste Management Board. Sindh. But the joke was that it collected garbage from only four parts of Karachi — one city in the province.
Now, seven years since it was created, the chief minister and his government have realized that they actually need to get the board to collect garbage from the entire province.
The government started by updating the 2014 law that sets the rules for garbage collection. So we now have a SSWM Act, 2021. It says the board should work in all six divisions of Karachi, not just its West, East, South and Malir where it collects it door-to-door. Garbage bins outside apartments are emptied twice a day by SSWMB teams. Work will start in Central and Korangi districts in July.
“We have started working in Karachi, Hyderabad and Larkana divisions, and the Sukkur tender is in its final stage,” SSWMB MD Zubair Channa said. He said Hyderabad was in bad condition.
In Karachi at least, there is still a problem with the cantonments who are a law unto themselves. “The cantonment boards are not transferring their garbage to the Garbage Transfer Stations and the SSWMB staff is lifting the garbage from their jurisdictions too,” he added.
How will it work now?
The Solid Waste Management Board will work out of Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Sukkur, Benazirabad and Larkana.
The board shall recommend to the government a tax or charges for garbage collection. The steering committee will approve the rates.
Each division will have its own board:
- The Commissioner (chairperson)
- Mayor or administrator of the metropolitan corporation
- Local Government Secretary
- SSWMB MD
- Two executive directors
- One deputy commissioner
- One NGO member from the area
- One solid waste management technical expert
The board will be monitored by a steering committee headed by the Minister for Local Government, which is the big change mentioned in the Act of 2021.
The steering committee is:
- Minister for local government (chairman)
- Commissioner
- Mayor or administrator
- Local government secretary
- Finance Secretary
- SSWMB MD
- Two private members (one academic and one NGO member)
- The Steering Committee will:
- Meet once in six months
- Set policy
- Discuss and approve budgets
- Approve appointments
- Approve schemes
The board will contract out garbage collection. It will take over gradually from the district councils and other bodies presently dealing with solid waste management after the steering committee approves. With the Steering Committee’s approval a board can grant permission to individuals, institutions, industries, factories, workshops, furnaces, compost maker and power generation companies to use the solid waste produced if they wish to segregate recyclable material.
A retired government officer explained that while it was not a bad idea in theory to have a province-wide garbage collection operation, the government did not make it work as it should have. When the board was created seven years ago, it was supposed to operate at the grassroots level in the union councils. The city government was supposed to control it. But the PPP ran the Sindh government and did not want the MQM in the city government to be too powerful so it made the board provincial.
Why this is all a bad idea
Environmental lawyer Zubair Abro told SAMAA Digital that these changes are just another old “tareeqa-e-wardaat” of the Sindh government to grease palms.
In Section 11 of sub clause (i) of the Act, the CM has the power to select the board’s managing director and his or her salary. “I reckon it is not good for any government department,” he said. “Collective decisions produce better results.”
The Act is creating confusion, he added. Section 10(i) says that the rules would be framed by the steering committee. But Sections 27 and 28 say the board will do this.
And so it is not clear which body makes the rules.
“It is good to fix a fee or charges on garbage lifting from individuals, but it should be nominal,” Abro added. This merits adding more public participation as members so the boards get real feedback.
