Suburban
ELDERLY pensioners from Marlborough have lamented the total collapse of refuse collection in the capital city saying the City of Harare’s lack of a strategy to deal with waste collection has seen them go for close to a month without their garbage being collected.
Ivan Zhakata Suburban Reporter
Some of the residents dumped their refuse at the local district office in protest of the non-collection of garbage in the neighbourhood.
The elderly pensioners have since written a letter to the acting Harare Mayor Councillor Stewart Mutizwa and the acting town clerk Engineer Phakamile Moyo expressing their anger over council’s lack of clarity in terms of strategy when it comes to refuse collection. In a letter written by Mrs Joyce Mtshani-Khumalo, representing the Marlborough Elderly Pensioners (MEP), the residents said they had exhausted all channels of getting their rubbish collected with no success.
“The main response from the council is all trucks are broken down or the few that are there cannot cope,” wrote Mrs Mtshani-Khumalo.
“In essence, the city council has totally failed to collect refuse. It has left several residents to either burn their rubbish or digging pits in their premises to bury the rubbish. Some of us who are ecologically conscious have engaged private collectors to collect.
“Under such circumstances it is incorrigible for council to continue charging residents for refuse charges when there is no collection. Can your office scrap off the refuse charges from our bills with immediate effect backdated to March 2022?”
Mrs Mtshani-Khumalo said for the whole of last year and in January and February this year, the municipality was collecting once a month and rarely fortnightly as it promises.
“Adjust our bills accordingly. Some of us are prepared to go to court for this and will only pay for the services delivered period. We hope to receive your cooperation in this matter,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Harare Residents Trust (HRT) has urged residents to write letters of complaints and make time to visit council offices in groups to demand services.
“Sitting at home and merely complaining will not resolve things, let the officials know that you are watching them,” HRT said in a statement.
The City of Harare presently has only eight refuse collection trucks servicing the city’s 46 wards, business premises and public places while the rest are broken down.
This has resulted in some residents dumping rubbish on open spaces while others resort to burning although it is banned according to environmental management laws. A recent full council meeting resolved that the City of Harare should set aside money to buy new refuse compactors and repair those currently broken down. The virtual collapse of refuse collection in Harare had led to garbage piling up in residential areas, public places and business premises.
Ward 41 Councillor Kudzai Kadzombe has suggested that residents and companies in the ward come together and find ways of reviving the refuse truck that used to serve the ward before it broke down in 2017.
Ward 41 residents felt waiting for the municipality to buy new garbage trucks or repairing the broken down ones might be a long process hence the suggestion to take ownership of one refuse truck and help fix it so that it can be dedicated to Ward 41. Ward 41 covers Marlborough, the Red Roofs area, Bluff Hill, Avonlea, Westgate, Emerald Hill, Ashbrittle, Adylin, Good Hope and Willow Creek.
