A Bulawayo City Council (BCC) official has admitted that the local authority is struggling to contain illegal vending in the city centre which has resulted in rampant littering.
Speaking at a Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe (WCoZ) organised Indaba on challenges experienced by women during water shedding and inconsistent refuse collection in the city, BCC Cleansing Superintendent Nkanyiso Ndlovu said the council was working hard to restore sanity.
“Allow me to say we are at a stage where we have seen unprecedented levels of vending in the CBD and that brings with it a lot of littering, unexpected solid waste management practices and we have also seen an increase in the number of unscrupulous residents, people who do not have a pride in their city and that contributes to a dirty city,” said Ndlovu.
“With regards to fifth avenue, you saw our efforts, there was a time when the city council tried to bring order in that area and the results were there for all to see. Unfortunately, we had to halt that operation, thus why the uncleanliness in that area continues.”
He said the local authority is, however, engaging the vendors in that area, “to say let’s do something about our city, we need to join forces and make sure that our city is clean.”
Ndlovu said the situation has been compounded by the constant breakdown of refuse compactors.
“In a normal situation, we need 26 compactors but currently we only have 14 compactors and out of those 14 compactors, as of today only seven were on the road, the other seven are at a workshop, so already we are having challenges in terms of our capacity to collect refuse,” he said.
“In the residential areas, generally the problems are minimal because on every scheduled day we can send trucks to collect but, in the CBD, we face those challenges, unfortunately, the CBD this one is we have not yet improved in terms of collection, so admittedly we do have challenges in terms of collection in the CBD and we are hoping that a day will come when that situation will improve.”
Ndlovu revealed that currently there are three teams collecting garbage at night and the council is exploring options of increasing the teams so that all areas in the CBD are serviced three times a week.
“In the next four weeks, we should see an improvement but I will be honest with you, our refuse compactors are almost 10 years, the other ones were procured in 2011, and others were procured in 2017, the normal lifespan of a refuse compactor is about seven years because this is a truck working for eight hours a day so its life span becomes short.”
