H-TOWN RUBBISH NIGHTMARE

Talent Gore

HARARE mayor, Councillor Jacob Mafume, has set a target for Council to clear all rubbish dumps in the capital to en-sure a clean city by next month.

Speaking at a special Council meeting on service delivery, held at Town House, Cllr Mafume said they will purchase equipment needed to clean up Harare and make it a clean city in the festive month.

“We want the 45 (garbage) compactors to be working so that there is, at least, a truck for every ward,” he said.

“We need to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding and get the money required to repair the trucks so that they start working.”

He said Council officials had informed him that it was pos-sible to buy 10 new tipper trucks before the end of the year.

“We need 20 tipper trucks, but finance director, Godfrey Kusangaya, said 10 tipper trucks are achievable before the end of the year and we will do that.” He said Harare could not continue having water shortages through December and January.

“People will be sitting in their homes trying to celebrate Christmas and I don’t want my data to be wasted reading posts from people saying they don’t have water,” he said.

Council’s acting engineering director, Victor Musikavanhu, told the meeting they have problems with delivery of alu-minium sulphate from Zimphos. He said the lack of supplies from Zimphos was due to out-standing payments which the Council owes the chemicals supplier.

Engineer Gerald Mutume, from the City’s Works depart-ment said they require excavators and tractor loader back-hoes (TLBs) to clean drainages around the city.

“At the moment we have one excavator. I need three ex-cavators,” he said.