Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume has implored the business community to join hands with Council in a cleanup exercise dubbed “Chenesa Harare” launched last week.
Mayor Councillor Jacob Mafume has implored the business community to join hands with Council in a cleanup exercise dubbed “Chenesa Harare” launched last week.
In an interview Mayor Mafume said garbage is everyone’s child hence the need to work together to tackle what is slowly becoming a bad spot on the Sunshine image of our City.
“Harare City is one the beautiful cities in the world, a city where every day is a good day and a city where sun comes out almost everyday hence we should keep the city clean and restore the shine,” he said.
“We can blame each other but that will not resolve the matter. All customers need to play their part — with residents and corporates paying their bills as well as joining the city in cleaning up the city.”
Council embarked on a programme called Chenesa Harare in a bid to clear all illegal dump sites.
“We need to look on ways of managing our waste since there are more than 600 illegal dumps in the suburbs which have become an eyesore and a health hazard. We need to look at how we manage our waste as a city.”
“We are therefore looking for assistance to carry out a blitz to remove illegal dumps through the provision of pieces of equipment such as trucks, dumpers, front end loaders, dozers, tractors mounted with trailers and compactors etc.”
He urged communities with the capacity to come forward and adopt compactors and other equipment for repair and maintenance and use the same in their areas in the spirit of decentralisation.
Mayor Mafume also implored companies and individuals to assist in implementing programmes to recycle and reuse waste at source or community-based initiatives.
Council needs a fleet of about 30 to 40 compactors, 15 to 20 tipper trucks, 5 front end loaders and 3 backhoe escalators so it can clear the drains and dump sites daily.
"In terms of clearing those dumpsites, we need to make sure that they don't reappear and have a continuous service.”
Mayor also noted that people are not used to enforcement or a city with rules but rather a city with chaos and everyone throwing litter everywhere without any consequences hence the city was now dirty.
“For this blitz, we are making sure that we remove the illegal dumps and do an enforcement ", Mafume said.
