Government wants unemployed to clean up rivers

The newly re-established Ministry of Environment has put its head together with the Ministry of Labour, the Association of Slovak Towns and Villages (ZMOS) and the Slovak Waterworks Company (SVP) to produce a project that will get the unemployed to clean up rivers following this year’s wave of heavy floods.

Environment minister Jozsef Nagy announced the news following a meeting with municipal representatives, which also looked at the issue of establishing sewerage systems for those villages that are still without. Nagy admitted, though, that due to financial constraints at the ministry this particular project will have to be shelved for a while.

The river clean-up project is expected to generate around 1,000 jobs in East Slovakia in the first stage, with the government earmarking EUR 44 million in total for flood clean-up jobs. Overall the government is talking about 15,000 jobs being created, but the interest might be weak as the jobs are for a fixed term of about half a year with a pay of about EUR 330 a month.