The Ministry of Tourism and Urban Renewal, working closely with the Roseau City council has embarked on a cleanup campaign of the city of Roseau.
GIS News spoke with the Hon Minister for Tourism and Urban Renewal, Senator Robert Tonge in an exclusive interview on Thursday, May 12th.
“We got involved because we are cognizant that it impacts on tourism; one of the low scores we got on the Business Research and Economic Advisors (BREA) report was to do with cleanliness. So we looked at the entire report and developed a suite of objectives to deal with the issues properly.
“We did a full sweep of Roseau and now from 5am-10am, there is a team of 12 guys going throughout the city cleaning the gutters and making the city more presentable. So right now you will see that the gutters are cleaner than they used to be.”
He notes that the issue of litter must be concerning to all.
“The fundamental issue that we have is that as soon as we clean, people are still littering drains indiscriminately. They are throwing bottles in the drains even when there are bins nearby; if you look into the bins, 90% of them are mostly empty. W really implore the people of Dominica to have a bit more pride and maintain the same practices as when your are out of the country.”
He is calling on nationals to play their part and listed an upcoming campaign titled, ‘I am Dominican and I Do Not Litter’.
“We depend on you. Garbage has no feet or hands; it’s not able to move on its own and we have to stop that practice of indiscriminately dumping garbage all over the place. Dominica would be a much better and cleaner place,” he appealed.
