Businesses doing own clean-up in Mt Hagen

BUSINESS houses in Mt Hagen are taking it upon themselves to clean rubbish piling up in front of their offices.
Businesses at the main bus stop and market demanded an answer from the city authority and Hagen Kona Kai why they failed to remove rubbish regularly.
Frustrated employees of Mondo Plaza building which houses about 20 different businesses, issued a strong warning to city authorities to perform their jobs or farm the job out to other entities that can do it.
An employee of Mondo Plaza, Joachim Tembon, who spoke on behalf of other employees, said the business houses paid trading licence fees to the city authority to help keep their business fronts clean, among other services.
Tembon warned that if they saw any city authority employees collect rubbish and off-loaded it at the main bus stop, they would “take action”.
“When are they going to come and collect their rubbish when they said that they would come several times with their big dump truck but never turn up?” he asked.
David Maip, the chairman of the Hagen Kona Kai concept, said the main purpose of establishing the concept was to reduce petty crimes in the city.
Maip said the city rangers’ job was to ensure that the safety and well-being of the people coming into the city were protected.
He said the concept achieved good results in minimising petty crimes on the streets since it was first established late last year.
Maip said the cleanliness of the city relied on every one including business houses.
He said the 30 cleaners employed by the authority to clean the city was not enough to cater for the influx of people who came in every day, littered the city and went away.
Maip appealed to the people to use common sense and dispose their rubbish in the bins provided to make it easy for the city authority to dispose of them.
He commended Mondo Merchants for taking the initiative to clean the city using its own resources every time.
He challenged other business houses in the city to do the same because the city authority manpower was not enough to keep the city clean every day.