BY SILAS NKALA BULAWAYO City Council (BCC) will spend US$169 000 to rehabilitate its dumpsite equipment amid reports that the city lacks tools to manage landfills.
This has hamstrung council’s waste management services.
In its latest minutes, BCC pledged to incur the US$169 000 expenditure to refurbish its earthmoving plants for the Richmond and Ngozi Mine landfill sites.
The minutes stated that a compactor, dozer and front-end loader had broken down and “required comprehensive engine overhauls”.
“The management committee resolved that the equipment should be refurbished to enable smooth waste disposal operations to meet the Environmental Management Agency (Ema) standards,” the minutes read.
“The city currently lacks the capacity to do engine overhauls due to lack of specialised tooling and dyno-testing equipment, therefore, refurbishment will be outsourced. The financial director was consulted and concurred. It was resolved and recommended that authority be granted to incur expenditure to the tune of US$169 000 under vote 0093/14822 in the year 2022 capital budget to refurbish the above three plants.”
Recently, city fathers called for the removal of squatters at the Ngozi Mine landfill, saying they were starting fire at the dumpsite, which was costing council a lot of money, as well as polluting the environment.
Council says huge amounts of refuse were disposed of at Ngozi Mine in February 2022, but management of the waste was affected by lack of machinery.
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Indications are that the landfill compactor, dozer and front-end loader had been grounded for over a year. Council had to depend on hiring machinery which was proving to be expensive.
BCC said it was closely watching hotspots in the Bulawayo central business district (CBD) to improve refuse collection.
“The plan was to have four compactors that would service the CBD area daily. The major challenge was obsolete equipment. Out of the 15 refuse compactors, only nine were operational. Six were in the workshop. Eastern areas were also serviced by council refuse compactors. Efforts were being made to engage residents with regards to solid waste management,” the minutes said.
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