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Mukudzei Chingwere Herald Reporter

The long-awaited sorting out of the Harare’s Pomona rubbish dump, converting it into a modern managed waste facility that can be used to produce energy, came a step closer yesterday when the City of Harare and Netherlands investor Geogenix BV signed a joint venture agreement.

Under the agreement, the firm will invest €303,9 million for a waste-to-energy facility at the Pomona dump site and operate the facility for 30 years. The project was approved by Cabinet last month as a design-build-operate-transfer investment.

The Dutch investor has promised to move fast and start working on the project 45 days after yesterday’s signing.

Under the deal, the investor will design, build, operate and transfer the Pomona waste management facility and waste-to-energy plant project. The deal should finally sort out the waste site, which has seen spontaneous fires, and will fuel a modest power station.

Deputy Chief Secretary and National Co-ordinator, Flagship Programmes and Projects, Office of the President and Cabinet, Engineer Amos Marawa, witnessed the signing yesterday and ensured that both parties were aware of the Government approval and support.

Eng Marawa said this was a very important occasion where Government witnessed, “the success story of a contract joint venture concession agreement which is the successful partnership between the city of Harare and our investor Geogenix BV of the Netherlands”.

He said this was, “a modern facility for waste management”, unlike the traditional dumpsite inherited from the colonial era.

Eng Marawa said the Government was committed to assist in this regard as part of President Mnangagwa’s administrative thrust of championing projects anchored at improving people’s livelihoods thereby feeding an upper middle income society by 2030.

Harare Mayor, Councillor Stewart Mutizwa gave details of the project .

“We are introducing the programme of integrated waste management which is going to see state-of-the-art equipment coming with Geogenix BV of Netherlands.

“All this time we were engaged in rigorous negotiations so as to come up with a proper document that will lead us in the management.

“The signing today shows us that we are ready to go and the promise that we got from our partner is that 45 days from now we are going to be seeing something starting,” said Mayor Councillor Mutizwa.

Councillor Mutizwa said the council advertised the tender three times with the first one finding no takers but later reached an agreement with the European investor after the third advert.

“We thought we should involve our Government (as witnesses) to introduce the whole of Government approach. This is one of our many projects of the smart city, no more dump site.”

Geogenix BV representative Mr Giuseppe Ciaffaglione said they are committed to do a comprehensive job under this project.

“It is a very huge project for us and for Harare as well and we assure that within a short period the quality of environment and life of the citizens of Harare will change,” said the Geogenix BV boss.

The company’s country representative, Mr Delish Nguwaya, thanked the Government for creating a conducive environment for investors.

He said under this project Zimbabwe will benefit from “job-creation, load-shedding would be reduced greatly, clean city and environment, technology transfer and other investors will have appetite to invest in Zimbabwe”.