EMA fines municipality US$14 000

authority of engaging in activities harmful to the environment.
EMA Board vice chairperson Ms Jennifer Tanyanyiwa ordered the local authority to make a payment plan for its subsistence US$45 165 for licenses and tickets no later than December 13 this year. In passing sentence the board noted that town clerk Mr Godfrey Tanyanyiwa did not care for the citizens.
The board noted that the authority demonstrated ignorance of the extent of the situation after he was literally forced to attend the board hearing.
“Stop all developments activities in all wetlands with immediate effect.
“Designate waste collection centres and submit the list no later than December 31, remove all illegal dumpsites by January 2012 and ensure weekly collection of refuse from the residential and business areas with immediate effect.
“Decommission the current dumpsite and identify a suitable new site, submit the proposal to new landfill by January 2011,” she said.
The municipality was also ordered to stop the illegal discharge of sewage within two months
“Attend to sewage bursts in all residential areas within a day of reporting.
“Increase the number of effluent holding ponds at Zengeza Sewage treatment plant in order to improve retention time. Submit the plan to the Agency by December 31.”
Ms Tanyanyiwa said the municipality was supposed to produce a Local Environmental Action Plan according to EMA Act CAP 20:27 not late than May 2012.
“All the water, affluent and solid waste management plans will be monitored by EMA inspectors on a weekly basis,” she said.
Responding to the board’s determination, Mr Tanyanyiwa said that discharging 25 mega litres of raw sewage into Manyame and Nyatsime rivers was a deliberate decision by council.
“Harare Metropolitan is affected because we are upstream, problems of Harare will not be solved until Chitungwiza problems are solved first.
“We had to remove sewage from houses as people could not use the toilets and to avoid cholera recurrence…
“The financial crisis we are into is because of a bloated staff currently we have 2 000 workers.
“We tried to rectify the problem by doing job evaluations but we are facing resistance from residents and politicians,” he said.
Mr Tanyanyiwa said council had ordered the Prophet Emmanuel Makandiwa-led United Family International Church to stop building septic and soak away toilets but to connect to the municipality’s sewage system.
UFIC is currently building a 30 000-seater church, an administration block and 50 septic and soak away toilets.
“We have served the church with several orders to stop development on realisation that their property was on wetlands but they threatened to sue the municipality and we cannot afford to compensate them. All people on wetlands are to be relocated but there is nothing we can do to those who have already developed because we cannot compensate them,” he said.
Mr Tanyanyiwa however, said the municipality had received US$650 000 from Public Sector Investment Programme towards improvement of sanitation.
“We have also approached the ADB Bank and we got 1,9 million Euros to improve our systems,” he said.