Juba Mayor Michael Ladu Allah-Jabu addressing the media in Juba. | 2nd June 2022| Credit: Moyo Jacob/Eye Radio.

The Mayor of Juba, Michael Ladu Allah-Jabu has promised tough punitive measures against individuals randomly disposing wastes in the city.

This comes as the Council launched a garbage collection initiative in Juba today.

Addressing the media this morning, Mayor Michael Allah-Jabu says cleaning Juba is one of his key priorities.

“The new initiative for Juba City Council is going to start as soon as possible in order to meet its motto ‘keep Juba clean and green and health’ also and hospitable for people to live in,” said Mayor Allah Jabu.

He called on the public and stakeholders to comply with the company in keeping the city clean, and also warned that individuals found to be dumping wastes on the streets risk legal measures.

“Anyone dumping garbage on road from now onward, we will arrest and charge or we will jail according to the act of local government 2013 and 2015,” he said.

In January this year, the City Council signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Go Green East Africa Company to manage a privatized garbage collection in the city.

For his part, Goaner Timothy Tutlam, who is the Managing Director of the Go Green Company urges Juba residents to act responsibly and ensure proper disposal of waste to ease the work of company.

“There are four elements to waste management which I want to make clear for the public to hear. The first one is the mindset, which means individual responsibility, because even if we have one thousand trucks, if individuals are not responsible for the waste, there is no way we are going to clean the city,,” he said.

Mr Timothy also appealed to the general public to change their attitude of waste management, adding that the company cannot do it alone.

“So the responsibility start from the mindset of individual which is from us here, we have to dispose our waste responsibly and then for our company, will come and collect it,” Timothy said further.

The garbage collection process involves having households and institutions collect their wastes, putting them in a dustbin and having to pay the garbage trucks upon arrival.

However, Timothy said the garbage collection company is yet to decide on the waste collection fees.

“What will be done is to make sure they are not financially affected, we make sure we charge them a very fair rate of the amount, so we reduce that,” he told the media.

The company is set to start its work on Friday.