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Engineer Phillip Pfukwa

Bianca Leboho Herald Reporter
Harare City Council will not relocate from Pomona Dumpsite despite calls made by environmentalists and other affected stakeholders. Instead, city officials have said they would improve their management of the dumpsite. Addressing journalists during a tour of the Pomona dumpsite attended by Harare City Council environmental management committee, councillors and army officials from the Pomona Barracks, Harare City Council director of works Engineer Phillip Pfukwa said the city was already exploring ways of rehabilitating the dumpsite and ensuring that it was not harmful to the surrounding community.

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“We are not ready to move out of Pomona even if a new site is found, because it would take over a year to establish a new site while the Pomona dumpsite can be rehabilitated if proper management tools are employed.

“As management, our recommendation is that the council properly manages Pomona because with proper management the dumpsite can be rehabilitated and be rendered safe to the community and neighbours,” said Eng Pfukwa.

He added that the dumpsite still had the capacity to last for ten to fifteen years if properly managed.

“We have also flighted a tender and we are in the early stages of assessing partners who can effectively work with us towards facilitating the generation of energy through the waste we have at the dumpsite, a project which will cost not more than $100 million to establish,” said Eng Pfukwa.

Queried on why the city council had not heeded calls made by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) years ago, to relocate to an alternative dumpsite, Eng Pfukwa said if the authority failed to rehabilitate the dumpsite in future, then it would be obliged to relocate.

“We require equipment such as bulldozers, excavators and front way loaders to ensure the effective management of the site. “We have also employed methods of waste separation at community levels to ensure that the waste is recycled and only the recyclable ends up at the dumpsite,” he said.

Harare City Council electrical services Eng Calvin Chigariro said Harare city had allocated $30 million for waste management for its 2017 budget, $6 million of which would be used for the procurement of capital equipment and the rehabilitation of the dumpsite.

The authority’s environmental management committee vice chairperson councillor Joseph Rose added that the authority would establish waste recycling centres as a way of managing the Pompano dumpsite.

Army officials from Pomona Barracks, which is adjacent to the dumpsite said if it continued to be mismanaged, Harare City Council would have to relocate it to an alternative site.