The Wheatley Administration is steadily moving along with its plans to re-imagine beautification strategies in the territory by introducing a new year-round beautification mechanism through the Department of Public Works.
Premier Dr the Honourable Natalio Wheatley spoke mainly on the bush-cutting aspect of the initiative during a recent press engagement.
He said, “What we are doing now is hiring persons through the Public Works Department. That should be starting shortly, it’s just a matter of getting the Cabinet paper to the house so that we can embark on that process.”
In recent weeks, the government has admitted to facing delays in attending to the need for bush-cutting throughout the territory and blamed these delays on a need to change the manner in which contracts are being awarded – in line with recommendations made in the COI report.
Premier Wheatley shed some more light on the issue.
“We have bush cutting which is very topical right?… This reform, of course, it has caused a challenge among the governor and others in terms of how the contracts are being done for something like bush cutting. So we have to now adjust. But persons would’ve been used to a situation where they would be able to get a bush cutting contract and those persons wouldn’t be able to get a bush cutting contract like how we did it before”, he explained.
Wheatley said that despite the initial inconveniences, this provides an opportunity to create a better process.
“What we wanted to do is even though it had an impact on persons and some persons may not like it – use it as an opportunity to try to improve the process, so as opposed to having bush cutting done once, twice, three times a year, we’re trying to see if we can do it year round and have, instead of guys getting the contracts and then not being able to do anything for a long period in the year, have them to have a steady income and be gainfully employed”, he said.
The premier added that other activities tasked to those employed through this initiative will include curbside painting and general beautification.