The Colombo Municipality is grappling with issues like falling tax revenue and a crisis pertaining to a sick workforce, according to Omar Kamil, CMC’s Special City Administrator, Colombo Municipal Council (CMC).
“Our people are working among the sewage, garbage and traffic and 90 % are sick with such illnesses like eye problems, tuberculosis, etc,” said the former Mayor speaking at the monthly meeting of the Sunday Times Business Club at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel last week, where he outlined elaborate plans to tackle many issues including the garbage menace.
 He said tax collection is also an issue with a large proportion of the taxes not coming in. For example, with half the World Trade Centre (WTC) building being empty, those taxes don’t come in. “We are managing with less financial resources, but we manage.” Just before his presentation, well-known entertainer Ronnie Leach rocked the audience with laughter, cracking hilarious jokes, some to do with the garbage crisis. In spelling out his 100-day scheme to improve the city though in a small way, Mr Kamil said, “We hope to introduce more traffic lights as a short term measure to ease the traffic congestion, curtail waste of valuable municipal resources, and clear garbage to make small innovative changes”.
The CMC is hoping to introduce a synchronized traffic control system and reduce the size of the roundabouts and cut the corners at these bends.
He said that the CMC is rich in services with combined top and middle management and taken together there would be resources of four to five ministries with 125 engineers and 85 doctors and a large number of other professionals. Mr Kamil said, “We have engineers, assessors and accountants – a combined force of professional people who are not available in any government institution.”
He said that they were left with a legacy of mismanagement of affairs of the CMC by the previous administration which led to the loss of confidence in the residents of the municipality.
The biggest problem is the clearing of garbage. Mr Kamil said that legal action in the past has jeopardized garbage dumping in land-fills and also referred to the case of a World Bank-funded project in Meepe to recycle 1,000 tons per day of garbage collected from Colombo and several other municipal areas which failed.
Despite all these setbacks, Mr Kamil said that they have put into effect a plan to regularly clear garbage where collection of garbage is a scheduled, daily timetable while in poorer areas collection is done twice daily. But, he noted that, they have found in many cases, some irresponsible citizens dumping garbage after the scheduled clearance, even after residents have been informed.
He said that there were instances that they were compelled to call the police in and warn such residents. Mr Kamil said that a 6,000-strong police unit is being deployed in the quest to keep the city clean and green where violators would be nabbed and fined. He urged residents to assist them to keep the city clean.
Productivity is a major issue, he noted, saying, “We cannot get productivity from the (9,000-strong) workforce in proportion to the salaries we have been paying and whether you work or not you have to pay this money”. He said, “We must know how to get the best out of these people. There are complaints of corruption and wastage. I look at things differently and if I can get 50 % productivity we achieve our target.”
Sympathizing with workers who work with dirt and muck, Mr Kamil said, “They work among sewage, garbage and traffic. If you subject the workforce to a medical test, 90 % would be sick with eye problems and TB, etc. I do not expect them to work eight hours as it is not feasible. If you get four hours that would be something because their body cannot yield beyond that. We have to look at the ground reality.”
He went on further to say, “Nobody likes to be among garbage, sewage and you have to understand their side of the story and only get the best out of them.”
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