Gweru to privatise refuse collection

Freedom Mupanedemo Midlands Bureau
Cash-strapped Gweru City Council is seeking to privatise refuse collection amid revelations that its ageing fleet is now expensive to run. In an interview yesterday, the town clerk, Ms Elizabeth Gwatipedza said they were seeking to engage private contractors to collect solid waste in the city’s high density suburbs.

“The reason we want to privatise refuse collection is because our ageing fleet is now failing to meet demand due to constant breakdowns. We want to improve on service delivery especially refuse collection and to achieve this, we have said let’s engage private players who own four to 10 tonne trucks to do the job. We are looking at truckers who stay in those suburbs to improve on efficiency,” she said. Ms Gwatipedza said the council was struggling to service its refuse trucks which she said was now very old with no readily available spares.

“The council has seven refuse trucks, but they are now old. They are no longer reliable and most of them are very expensive to maintain. When there is a breakdown, they spend close to three months in the garage because the spare parts are not readily available. The trucks were supplied by a German company and the parts are not found locally,” she said. Ms Gwatipedza said the pilot project by private refuse trucks will be done in high-density suburbs.

“We are starting with high density suburbs while the council will continue to collect refuse in low density suburbs. If this pilot project becomes a success, we will surrender the whole project to private players,” she said. Ms Gwatipedza said privatising refuse collection will save council a significant sum of money.

“When it succeeds, it means we will no longer need refuse collection team. When we came up with this idea of privatising, the health department had indicated that the refuse collection department was understaffed so instead of employing, we said lets privatise and let residents also participate in refuse collection by working with contractors in their areas,” she said.