Suburban
HARARE Mayor Jacob Mafume has set a target for the City of Harare to clear all the rubbish dumps in the capital and ensure it is clean by next month.
Diana Nherera Suburban Reporter
Speaking at a special council meeting on service delivery held at Town House on Tuesday this week, Councillor Mafume said all the issues discussed will be taken to the management committee or any relevant committee to have a joint committee meeting and get the specifics on when equipment will be bought and what will happen to ensure that by December, Harare is clean and the dump sites are cleared.
“We also want the 45 (garbage) compactors to be working so that there is at least a truck for every ward.
“We have 18 trucks and when I leave this meeting I will commission two more trucks to make them 20.
“The balance of the 24 trucks, I am assured that even if we don’t purchase, we have enough repairable trucks in our workshop for that to be done.
“We need to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding and get the money that is required to repair those trucks so that they start moving as compactors,” he told the meeting.
Cllr Mafume said the council officials had informed him that it was possible to buy 10 new tipper trucks before year end.
“We need 20 tipper trucks but the city finance director, Mr Godfrey Kusangaya said 10 tipper trucks are achievable before the close of the year and we will do that.
“We will write a letter or contemplate legal action to get our devolution funds from Local Government and central Government which is $2 billion.
“If that $2 billion comes, we will dedicate it to the purchase of equipment that is required by the city in the services department.
“It will not buy NP300s (Nissan trucks), Navaras (double cab trucks), it will buy yellow machinery when that money comes,” he said.
Cllr Mafume said the city cannot afford to have the water shortages in the capital prolonged to November, December and January of next year with residents living without water.
“People will be sitting in their homes trying to celebrate Christmas.
“I don’t want my Twitter (data) to be wasted reading posts of people saying they don’t have water,” he said.
Acting city water director Engineer Victor Musikavanhu told the special council meeting that the city is currently having problems with the delivery of aluminum sulphate by Zimphos.
“We are supposed to get four loads but of late we are not getting consistent supply.
“There was mention of lack of oxide on their side,” Eng Musikavanhu said.
But Mr Kusangaya said the lack of supplies from Zimphos was due to outstanding payments the municipality still owes the chemicals supplier.
“But the plan we have with Zimphos is we are supposed to clear the current deliveries.
“The plan that we agreed with the Ministry is that Government owes us over $1 billion and agreed on a settlement that they can pass on that money to Zimphos but they didn’t want to be involved in our debt dispute,” he said.
Cllr Mafume urged Mr Kusangaya to find ways to clear the outstanding payments to Zimphos.
“Let’s find a solution which we can control,” he said.
Mr Kusangaya said the city is trying to pay the money from its own revenues.
He advised the special council meeting that the municipality paid $100 million to Zimphos on Tuesday this week to prevent a shutdown of the Morton Jaffray Water Works due to lack of water purification chemicals.
Engineer Gerald Mutume from the city’s department of works department said they require excavators and tractor loader backhoes (TLBs) to carry out drain cleaning in the city.
“At the moment we have one excavator. I need three excavators,” he said.
The special council meeting heard that there is one excavator that has been bought and awaits delivery.
Eng Mutume said three of their TLBs are all broken down with only one which can be revived through repairs. He said there is a tender to buy three TLBs which will be prepared in a few days’ time.
