By Gary Hatigeva
VEHICLE owners residing in East, Central and West Kola Ridge, are calling on the Honiara City Council (HCC) and other relevant authorities to take serious action on the carwash activities along the grave yard road.
Central Honiara residence using the road on a day to day basis felt that the authorities continue to turn a deaf ear on the many calls that have previously been made to them to stop or properly regulate these carwash activities as their activities continue to cause damages to the road.
Earlier, Island Sun did a story on these activities, questioning HCC on the status of these activities, which they confirmed to be illegal and operations should have not been there at the first place.
HCC assured the public that they will take actions, but to date since this follow up, no actions have yet been taken and insiders told this paper that all these activities are still operating without any legal approvals from the authorities.
Because of this, residents are again calling on the Authorities to step in now to put an end to these activities as many expressed damages to parts of their vehicles from this particular road section due to the poor condition of the highlighted road.
“Remember, we use this road daily going up and down the Grave Yard road, and it is so frustrating that we have to drive in manners to avoid these drain like sections, which only put the safety of pedestrians at risk,” a vehicle owner pointed out when interviewed.
Other residents expressed that because of these activities, the roads are worsened, with little or no rehabilitations, and because no actions to repair or maintain them, the status of these roads have also become big factors in causing unnecessary hold ups and delays that users experienced almost every day.
“Because of these delays and hold ups, we sometimes decided to leave early, with hopes to avoid the cue, but have always ended up in a cue and this is due to the worsened section.
“At times, we would think it is a hold up especially, coming down from the Kola Ridge section, thinking it is a chain from the main road, but by the time we got close, we’d realise it is a hold up or delay from the part of the road just in between where all the carwash are happening,” one of the residents shared.
It is understood that the grave yard and surrounding areas, which include the road sides where the carwash activities are taking place, belong to the Honiara City Council, and this according to the frustrated vehicle owners, should not stop the Council from stepping in anytime.
While residents see the need to make earns meat for a lot of those who are involved in these carwash activities, they are worried that the numbers are increasing by the day, and the Authorities particularly, HCC is thought to be losing out on revenues as these activities are making profits from HCC owned resources and legal fees.
This then puts the HCC’s credibility and status as an authority, at serious question as many issues of similar nature continue to increase without being properly dealt with.
Some residents are however looking into steps to take legal actions themselves against the responsible authorities for negligence of care and duty to their law abiding citizens who also felt their calls are continuously being ignored.
Many shared that the calls for action should be taken seriously as this situation has not only affected concerned citizens, but so as taxpaying residents of Honiara City.
“Some of us are business license holders within the HCC under its laws and regulations, and to be ignored like this is uncalled for.
“There are some of us who run small scale businesses, but have to pay their taxes, and at times get penalised if we’d fail, but these carwash activities are totally out of control, as they not only operate illegally without paying any dues, their illegal activities are also causing damages to the state’s properties, which should also be an offence.
“One of which is the road infrastructure that continues to decay from these activities without any form of attention from both the HCC and the Ministry of Infrastructure Development,” a prominent business man who is also a resident in the West Kola Ridge area expressed.
