NEW: Vendors protest over uncollected garbage at Mbare market

Diana Nherera

VENDORS at Mbare Vegetable Wholesale Market are refusing to pay fees to the Harare City Council due to the alarming lack of refuse collection at the market over the past four months.

Ward 3 Councillor Simbarashe Chanachimwe revealed this during last week’s council meeting. Cllr Chanachimwe stated that there was rotten garbage with maggots at the market due to recent rains.

“The only way to restore the market’s reputation and functionality is through a comprehensive daily refuse collection strategy,” he emphasised. “People need gumboots to walk in the market.”

Cllr Chanachimwe said Mbare is also facing another problem with new dumpsites where fast-food boxes and opaque beer bottles are being dumped.

“If you clear dumpsites today, there will be a heap of chicken and chips boxes and opaque beer bottles the next day,” he noted.

“We don’t know whether bar owners or the fast-food outlets are dumping them.”

Cllr Chanachimwe also called for tractors to clear garbage at the household level and at the dumpsites.

Harare Mayor Cllr Jacob Mafume stated that areas where refuse was not being collected under Operation Chenesa Harare, a city-wide initiative aimed at improving refuse collection and waste management, needed to be identified.

“Let’s improve it, let’s ensure regular collection, which includes a policing element, but I wanted to establish whether it is happening,” he stated.

“Is Geo Pomona carrying that rubbish, and if so, if the problem is recurring, then we need to find a way of ensuring that the garbage goes where it’s supposed to go.”