Zimpapers Logo

Nyemudzai Kakore: Herald Correspondent

Harare City Council has short-listed six companies for the construction of a waste management plant at Pomona Dumpsite, which will generate electricity, and curtail diseases such as cancer, as well as the recurrence of fire outbreaks.The plant, which will be constructed at a cost of between $80 million and $100 million, is expected to start mid-year after the State Procurement Board adjudicates over the tender. Fire outbreaks at the Pomona dumpsite have become a perennial problem.

Appearing before the committee on Environment, Water, Tourism and Hospitality Industry yesterday, Harare City Council acting town clerk Mrs Josephine Ncube and the director of works Engineer Phillip Pfukwa said this was a joint venture, which needed a firm with financial muscle and technical capacity.

Eng Pfukwa said the plant will enable council to move away from environmental degradation such as pollution. “We are in the process of a tender. We floated an expression of interest about 12 months ago where we want to convert waste to energy.

“The process took longer than we anticipated because of its complexity. We are now at the stage where we have forwarded to the State Procurement Board a shortlist of six companies who we want to give us the final submission of creating waste to energy,” he said.

“We will want them to create a properly engineered landfill as the dumpsite has been used for the last 30 years. They will initially mine the given area before putting up all the proper requirements for a landfill, while they continue with the waste-to-energy project.

“The project depends on the technology we will be using, but it will cost in the magnitude of $80 million to $100 million. We are hoping that by mid-year, this project will be kicking off the ground. We are hoping to sign an agreement in April or May with the winning bidder.”

Mrs Ncube said council had previously engaged an Italian firm over the plant but the firm chickened out at the stage of implementation.

She said because of financial constraints, plans for Pomona to be a properly engineered landfill site are long overdue hence, the waste to energy plant will give them a sustainable solution.

“Council has also in its 2017 budget set aside $2,5 million towards the design and preliminaries for the land-fill site, and in respect of the equipment that is required to maintain the land fill site, we have a budget of $3,5 million, and currently, we are waiting for the approval of the borrowing powers. The equipment will be permanently stationed at Pomona,” she said.

Eng Pfukwa said the short to mid-term measures being implemented by the city were the rehabilitation of the road network within the dumpsite, which involves clearing of the areas where they will dump gravel, compact it and make sure that all the roads are trafficable.

Appearing before the same committee earlier were Environmental Management Agency officials who blamed the city for the fire outbreak as they had not complied with set down measures.