‘Refuse trucks have access to Pomona’

Herald Reporter

All garbage trucks operated by Harare City Council and by private owners have full access to the Pomona dumpsite which is under the management of Geo-Pomona, contrary to claims by critics that the trucks were now barred from offloading garbage.

During a tour by acting City Mayor Stuart Mutizwa and Geo-Pomona officials, who included country representative Mr Dilesh Nguwaya yesterday, The Herald saw both city council and private refuse trucks had smooth access to the landfill.

Towards midmorning yesterday, a Harare City Council refuse truck and a private one could be seen entering the landfill, using the newly opened entrance, just metres away from the old one.

Three security personnel stationed at the new entrance were directing the refuse trucks to their offloading points.

Also at the main entrance were contractors constructing a weigh bridge, which when complete will allow accurate measurement of the mass of each load. Bitumen World machinery was also seen clearing refuse at the boundary, to pave way for the erection of a perimeter fence.

Speaking after the tour, acting mayor Musarurwa said this was the first visit by city officials after the site handover to Geo-Pomona and they were happy with what he described as “impressive progress”.

“They have already started and they are in the process of constructing the two weighbridges.

“All waste that is going to be accepted here is going through a weighbridge so that we know how much waste we are collecting and how much is produced from the households.

“This project is very good and good for Zimbabwe. We are going to see the waste to the energy plant. We have a technical team from Albania who are actually very eager to work and in the very shortest space of time we will be seeing much of the work happening,” he said.

Acting mayor Musarurwa said people will see the greening of the area, plants, flowers and grass to make sure that it will be a livable landfill site with no flies and smells.

“I also want to answer some of the issues coming from social media where people are asking why people are charging entry fees.

There is money in waste so the production of waste is actually supposed to be compensated.

“We are going to be compensated if we pay for it, but of course, the levels of the charges and everything will continue to be discussed and negotiated until we come to a figure acceptable to everyone,” he said.

Private trucks have always been charged when delivering waste at council landfills.

There are plans to expose all stakeholders in the city to appreciate the progress that is happening at the Pomona landfill.

Geo-Pomona general manager Engineer Enea Murataj said they were starting with a weighbridge in order to calculate the amount of newly generated waste and estimate how much waste has already been delivered over the years. The company will then construct three sanitary landfills for municipal waste, for ashes, and for water treatment used to discharge.

Once that is done the company will build the waste-to-energy plant.