Harare battling with litter challenge
WHILE litter has remained a challenge in the City of Harare, this is set to improve after the State Procurement Board allowed for the buying of refuse compactors and skip trucks.
This was revealed by acting Town Clerk Josephine Ncube during the State of City Address by Mayor Bernard Manyenyeni.
“It’s good that the State Procurement Board has approved for us to buy 20 refuse compactors and 10 skip trucks,” said Ncube.
This was said to be good news as Mayor Manyenyeni had said that the “sanitation team failed to achieve the set goal because they had broadened their scope.
“Efforts should have been made to increase the refuse collection fleet.
“The City faced fuel challenges in December which also affected operations.
“Efforts are being made in asset renewal and by mid-year we should have procured more refuse compactors.
“We have generally operated on less than half of our garbage compactor fleet,” said the mayor.
During a recent full council meeting councillors had also argued that litter was not being collected in their suburbs, saying that illegal dumpsites have now started to appear.
He added that “your council is quite concerned about the undesirable state of refuse collection which has led to illegal garbage dumps across the city.
“The refuse compactors that were acquired in 2010 are ageing hence the frequent breakdowns.
“Council is in the process of procuring more trucks.
“The situation has been aggravated by an indifferent culture of littering among our residents.
“Refuse collection efficiency is around 70 percent – those who have gone for weeks without waste collection may challenge this claim.
“Street Cleaning and illegal dump clearance was sustained in the CBD, main roads and shopping centres around the city,” added the mayor.
On the environmental challenges, the mayor also touched on the fire which broke out at Pomona landfill and was only put out after two weeks.
“A fire broke out in the early hours of Sunday 6th November and we battled for 2 weeks.
“Thanks not just to our fire team but even more to the many community hands, EMA, state and military teams who came in to help.
“We are working on prevention, effective landfilling and partitioning the dumpsite into cells, improved collection systems to avoid contamination.
“For such an ecological disaster, repeated for that matter, as a City we owe the environment some serious re-greening initiatives as compensation for the damage caused,” added the mayor.
BY MUNYARADZI DOMA
