The Bulawayo City Council (BCC) has accused some residents who live in the city centre of dumping their litter in sanitary lanes.
The local authority has been struggling to collect refuse on a regular basis owing to its ageing fleet of refuse compactors which often break down and fuel shortages.
Informal traders who attended a budget performance review meeting held on Monday complained of uncollected refuse in areas where they operate from.
In response, BCC Acting Director of Health Services Charles Malaba said the daily accumulating garbage is also caused by the influx of people operating in the CBD.
“The city is now dirty which is unusual, Bulawayo was said to be the cleanest City in Southern Africa but now I am not sure where it is ranging now. Ten years ago, when industry was functional, most people were operating from there, but now our industry is on the pavements and streets, everyone is operating from the CBD,” he said.
“Most cars now spend the whole day parked in the CBD with the owners doing different things, some of them are selling money, food, you find a vehicle parked and selling various wares from the boot. They then buy food, eat and produce garbage.”
Malaba said the local authority has noted that residents in the CBD are no longer disposing of garbage in bins.
“We have also noticed a challenge with the residents who stay in the CBD, they no longer put their garbage disposal plastics in bins, they now throw them in sanitary lanes.”
He said the local authority is struggling and failing to collect refuse every day in the CBD.
“Ideally, we should be having five vehicles operating in the CBD, Monday to Friday, we can cope with the accumulation of garbage but there is a shortage of vehicles. Out of 25 vehicles to service the whole City, at one stage we reached a point where we were operating with six vehicles the whole city but due to the plans to service the broken vehicles, at the moment there are 11 running vehicles, which means our fleet has improved these past weeks,” said Malaba.
He added that the local authority is working tirelessly to deal with garbage accumulation in the CBD.
“The few vehicles have to also service different suburbs, we are now working Sunday to Sunday, if you notice on Saturdays, you can see our vehicles busy in the CBD but the garbage accumulates and we are still trying to increase our fleet so that we have a vehicle in the CBD,” said Malaba.
He said the local authority is also carrying out awareness campaigns to educate residents on how properly dispose of their litter.
