The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) will this week embark on yet another city centre clean-up campaign with the local authority still struggling to collect garbage.
The clean-up exercise to be done in partnership with the Office of the Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Ministry of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry and the Environmental Management Agency will run from Wednesday to Friday from 12 pm to 6 pm.
“The aim is to reduce the risk of waste-related disease outbreaks that can affect all areas in the city due to the centrality of the CBD. This can be further worsened should rains come before the waste has been cleared as the waste will be washed into storm drains and blocked storm drains give rise to flash flooding and increase breeding of mosquitoes and spread of disease,” the council said in a statement.
A similar campaign was done in September last year but a few weeks later heaps of uncollected garbage returned again.
Council, which is also battling resource constraints, also launched a system to collect refuse in the city centre at night, but it did not yield the desired results.
Recently, Bulawayo’s health services director Dr Edwin Sibanda was suspended for alleged incompetence over uncollected garbage in the city centre.
An operation to rid the city centre of illegal informal traders, who are often blamed for breaking council by-laws was last week blocked by the government.
The City was targeting all persons conducting unauthorized informal trading on undesignated sites, washing of cars, repairing of vehicles, illegal pickup points by private vehicles, commuter omnibuses and buses, delivery of farm produce and other products onto the streets, push carts, heavy commercial vehicles into the Central Business District, illegal throwing and dumping of garbage or litter.
