Bulawayo councillors have called on the city management to reconsider increasing the number of community sweepers in various wards.
Each ward must have ten community sweepers tasked with cleaning the ward and maintaining hygiene in the community.
Following the delimitation process, some wards were expanded, and the councillors raised concerns that having ten sweepers is no longer feasible.
Speaking during the full council meeting, Ward 22 Councillor, Mmeli Moyo, urged the committee to lobby the department to increase community sweepers in the expanded wards.
“We need to be cognizant of the fact that the community sweepers play a crucial role in helping us to keep the city clean. With the expansion of the wards, it is no longer feasible to maintain the cleanliness of the wards with only ten sweepers,” he said.
“We are not asking for the increase of the sweepers just for it. We cannot say we have sweepers when they cannot be able to fulfill the tasks that have been put before them. At least let us know what the challenge is in terms of adding the number of community sweepers that we have.
Ward 29 Cllr, Royini Sekete, said when he approached the council officials, he was told that the geographical size of the city was not expanding.
“Your Worship, my ward keeps expanding yet the number of community sweepers is the same, and at some instances it shrinks. When I approached the Chamber Secretary, I was told that the management said the geographical size of the city had not expanded so there would be no increase of the sweepers,” Cllr Mutangi said.
“My question is, in my ward, we have areas such as Magwegwe North for example, that keep expanding. How will the community sweepers be able to clean the whole community, including the new areas, when they can hardly cover the current one?”
Meanwhile, the councillors have also raised concerns on the handling of litter around the city after the community sweepers would have cleaned up.
Ward 21 Cllr, Tinevimbo Maposa, queried why there was a seeming disruption in the arrangement for external truckers to collect refuse.
“There was an effective arrangement that council engaged truckers who would collect garbage and deposit it at certain points where it would be picked by the council and taken to Ngozi Mine. Of late this is no longer happening. What seems to be the problem? We now have heaps of garbage that goes for a while without being collected,” Cllr Maposa asked.
Ward 2 Cllr, Aleck Ndlovu noted that some community sweepers were in the habit of burning litter after cleaning up.
“Burning litter is against the city by-laws and the statutes of the Environmental Agency (EMA). We have told them (community sweepers) time and again not to burn litter, but we always see clouds of dark smoke which are a health hazard.”
