Bulawayo residents to embark on clean-up exercise

Kudzai Chikiwa, Chronicle Reporter
BULAWAYO residents will embark on a clean- up exercise next Friday following President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s declaration that the first Friday of each calendar month is National Environment Cleaning Day.

In an interview, Environmental Management Agency’s (EMA) Bulawayo Provincial Manager Mr Decent Ndlovu said following the declaration made by the President on December 5, residents must embark on the clean-up campaign for Bulawayo to maintain its status of being the cleanest city in the country.

“Following the President’s call for a clean environment, we are calling upon every citizen to join hands in making our city a safe and clean environment. From 8 to 10 in the morning on the first Friday of January we expect everyone to be busy at their workplaces, homes and wherever they are,” he said.

Mr Ndlovu said EMA has engaged stakeholders in the city to inspect different areas to see if people are complying with the declaration.

“We engaged residents’ associations, vendors’ associations and transport associations to help us in inspecting different areas. The idea is to show that cleaning the environment is a collective responsibility,” he said.

“Vendors should keep their sites free of litter. Vending sites, ranks, major highways and beerhalls are some of the areas where litter is accumulating. We are appealing to everyone to desist from dumping litter.”

EMA encouraged people to move around with big plastics bags to dispose litter since there is a shortage of bins.

“After cleaning our places, let’s avoid littering around again. Let’s move around with big plastic bags since there is a shortage of bins that has translated to littering of streets and road servitude as well as mushrooming of illegal dumps. We want to make it easy for the city council to collect refuse,” said Mr Ndlovu.

He said every first Friday of each month, the city will embark on a clean-up campaign.

“Let this be a daily habit. Bulawayo will religiously stick to this declaration every month. Our desire is to maintain a clean and safe city which is free from diseases,” he said. – @tamary98