Mutare City target private refuse collectors
SYDNEY SAIZE IN MUTARE
The Mutare City Council wants to engage private players to assist it with refuse collection in and around the city as it battles to provide service due to an ageing fleet.
The local authority is struggling to remove garbage in most suburbs owing to an ageing fleet and lack of compact refuse vehicles.
“Yes we are hiring private open trucks but these do not compact refuse and as a result load capacity is very much low and way below what a refuse compactor truck can do and manage,” Acting Town Clerk Blessing Chafesuka told Business Times.
“It is becoming very expensive for the council to collect refuse using this model. We tried looking for private refuse compactor trucks around the country but all have been in vain.
“As a way of assisting the council, if anyone knows any company in Zimbabwe with refuse compactor trucks please advise us. One refuse compactor truck can collect four times what an open truck of similar capacity can collect.
He said the local authority needs to hire compactor trucks and avoid open trucks as it is expensive and it’s neither efficient nor effective.
Chafesuka said only three out of the nine council refuse trucks were operating with the other six down.
“As council we need at least 12 refuse trucks to run our business smoothly and efficiently but as a result of the said challenges we have found ourselves failing to offer the desired service to the residents,” he said.
Chafesuka said another stumbling block was the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, which was taking a long time to approve their tenders for the procurement of a new fleet of trucks as well as the required spare parts from South Africa.
“To date we have sent three tenders for the purchasing of the trucks to the regulating authority but we have not got any joy. You know the procurement process with the government takes a long time, but we will have to wait and hope this time we succeed. The money for the compactor trucks is available,” Chafesuka.
His disclosures follow incessant complaints from residents associations in Mutare over the continued non collection of the refuse exposing residents and ratepayers to a likelihood of disease outbreaks such as diarrhoea, typhoid and cholera.
Recently, the coordinator of the Mutare Residents and Ratepayers Association, David Mutambirwa lamented the council’s failure to advise residents about the challenges they were facing.
Mutambirwa said the silence from the council on the days of collection and none collection of the garbage had led to residents dumping their rubbish at undesignated zones.
