By S.Browne. Updated 8:09 p.m., Tuesday, July 21, 2026, Atlantic Standard Time (GMT-4).
Minister of Health, Wellness, Environmental Health and Energy, Daniel Cummings, has declared that St. Vincent and the Grenadines experienced “the cleanest carnival we have ever seen”, using his contribution to the parliamentary debate on the Compassionate Gratuity for Daily and Minor Salaried Officers Bill to praise sanitation workers and other frontline public servants for their dedication.
Speaking in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, July 21, 2026, Cummings said sanitation workers played a critical role in maintaining the cleanliness of Kingstown throughout the Vincy Mas festivities, often working under difficult conditions while the public celebrated.
“Those of us who participated in the recent carnival cannot doubt that Kingstown has seen the cleanest carnival we have ever seen,” Cummings said.
He commended sanitation workers for their commitment, noting that much of their work takes place behind the scenes and often goes unnoticed.
“I want to commend the sanitation workers, as they’re oftentimes referred, who work under the most difficult of conditions when most of us are sleeping or too drunk to see. They go and they clean the city in a way that we can’t believe,” the minister said.
Cummings also recognised the contribution of several Government agencies that supported the country’s sanitation efforts during Carnival, including the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Community Development and the Central Water and Sewerage Authority (CWSA).
He said additional waste receptacles and handwashing stations helped to improve sanitation and public health throughout the festival.
“I want also, while I’m at it, to commend the various other departments of government, Tourism, Community Development through Minister Velox and others, for increasing the number of receptacles in the city, and to the CWSA for increasing the number of wash stations that people can find places to wash their hands and to ease themselves during the carnival season,” he said.
The minister broadened his remarks to recognise other categories of frontline workers whose contributions, he said, are essential to the country’s healthcare system but are often overlooked.
He highlighted hospital attendants, auxiliary nurses, ambulance drivers, vector control officers and environmental health workers, saying they all play an important role in protecting public health.
“There are a particular category of workers who do make a very significant contribution to the delivery of health care in this country,” Cummings said. “I speak of the male and the female attendants in the hospitals. I speak of the subcategories of nursing, of the ambulance drivers and all the persons who come together to make health care the important work that it is.”
He also acknowledged the work of vector control officers, particularly during the rainy season when mosquito populations increase and the risk of mosquito-borne diseases rises.
“At this time of the year, when the rains are coming, the people of the Grenadines are already experiencing significant increases in the mosquito population. And these workers are on the ball, working with the locals to eliminate the breeding spots because we know that we are prone to dengue and other outbreaks,” he said.
Cummings urged Vincentians to play their part by disposing of waste responsibly, noting that poor waste disposal creates unnecessary challenges for sanitation workers.
“Many persons still practise the silly habit of throwing a dead animal in somebody else’s place or into a drain, and it requires the work of sanitation workers to brave the stench to dispose of these bodies,” he said.
He added that the Compassionate Gratuity for Daily and Minor Salaried Officers Bill, which was passed by Parliament on Tuesday, recognises the value of these workers by providing a formal legal framework for compassionate gratuity payments to eligible non-pensionable public officers upon retirement or death in service.
“This bill seeks not just to make the repayments offered to public servants post-retirement, not just to make it automatic, but it goes beyond that to recognise these people as being bona fide, genuine employees whose service is worthy of recognition,” Cummings said.
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