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Prince Mukuna Herald Reporter
The Harare Residents Trust (HRT) has urged residents to cut back on garbage and work within their communities to ensure a clean environment. HRT director Mr Precious Shumba told The Herald last week that Harare City Council (HCC) was not collecting refuse in half of the capital’s wards.

The onus to ensure a clean, safe and secure environment, he said, was now on residents.
“Local communities can contribute 25c to 50c towards paying local unemployed people, hire trucks and collect the garbage on the day it should be collected and dump it inside council’s district offices or at identified open spaces,” he said.
“This would ensure that the council treats solid waste management as a top priority.

“The residents are charged once a month for weekly refuse collections, which unfortunately are not taking place when they should be.”

Mr Shumba said residents have a duty to lean on council to deliver on their legislative mandate.
“Whenever council does not collect refuse from households, the residents are urged to work through their local committees to undertake this important campaign and force council to at least become responsive to the ratepayers,” he said.
HCC corporate communications manager Mr Michael Chideme, however, insisted that garbage was being collected in and around the capital.

But he said authorities might fail to collect on schedule.
“We are having challenges, but we are managing to collect garbage,” said Mr Chideme. “In areas where we fail to collect garbage on schedule, we come back to collect the garbage.

“Garbage collection vehicles suffer problems unannounced. However, they are maintained everyday and we are also waiting for the delivery of new trucks.”