Her Worship, the Mayor of the Freetown Municipality, Yvonne Aki-Sawyer on the 26th June, 2019 launched the Sustainable Waste Management Project which encompasses local micro enterprise development.
The launching ceremony took place at the Mayor’s Parlour of the Freetown City Council.
During the occasion, the representative of the European Union donated to the Council vehicles, training tools, uniforms as the Project package geared towards investing in to the lives of young people who are willing to run a sustainable business, grow a business and at the same time service a business.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mayor Yvonne Aki-Sawyer disclosed that as a Council they are excited for the support offered by the European Union which is a manifestation of a true partnership. She disclosed that in the Transform Freetown drive there are four clusters and eleven priority sectors in which two stands above the rest which are sanitation and the environment because they have far reaching impact than everything else that goes on in the city.
She said the Council deliberately choose to launch the project alongside the registration of all waste providers in the city as the Council thought it vital for the EU to get the assurance of the Council in building and strengthening systems in the waste management sector of Freetown.
The Mayor noted that there are one hundred and thirty registered waste providers in Freetown amongst them seventy six have tricycles, eleven are doing so manually, thirty two have ‘Omolankays’ or push carts and the other eleven are using trucks or lorries.
She stressed that all those that would be collecting waste in the different wards in Freetown will be registered with the Council and awarded certificates and approval stickers.
The representative of the European Union, Mats Liliefalt, in his submission said the project seeks to address some of the waste management sanitation and health challenges of Freetown. He congratulated the Freetown City Council for supporting the project disclosing how the EU is providing Twenty Thousand Euros which is approximately 2.2 Billion Leones to the Freetown City Council for the implementation of the project to be implemented in twenty months.
He furthered that the launch of the project should be seen within the context of a wider partnership between the EU and the Sierra Leone Government to encourage and support national Civil Society Organizations and local authorities to gain strengthen in order to roll out effective local service delivery and development highlighting that other projects similar to this project are ongoing and will be launched in other parts of the country.
Mr. Andrew Tucker, Head of Rural Development and Governance, National Authorising Office of the Union emphasized that the Council needs to use the right procedures to implement the Project especially in the area of Procurement so that the project will achieve its intended outcomes.
