Trailer hitch grounds city tractors

Nokuthula Dube and Nokutenda Tobve

THE Harare City Council’s recently acquired fleet of 52 tractors meant to address the city’s waste management woes is grounded after the local authority failed to secure trailers.

The council took delivery of the tractors in January, but has since failed to deploy them, hampering efforts to address the capital city’s mounting solid waste crisis following the conclusion of the Government-led Operation Chenesa Harare.

The tractors were secured from Belarusian company BiSON Agro Machinery through Government.

In an interview with The Sunday Mail, Harare town clerk Engineer Hosiah Chisango said the city had only five trailers, far short of the required number to effectively use the new tractors.

“So far, we have purchased five trailers and we are yet to order more,” he said.

“For those 52 tractors, we might need two (trailers) per tractor so that the work becomes easier. As one trailer goes to offload, the other one would be receiving the garbage in every ward. Mind you, we have 45 wards.”

Eng Chisango said the city plans to purchase more trailers.

“We project that by April or May, we should have at least a trailer in each and every ward,” he said.

The local authority had begun distributing the tractors to ward offices.

“Some wards started collecting their tractors last week,” he said. “We have encouraged the councillors to do so and have urged them to keep the tractors safe.

“The advantage with these tractors is that they can be deployed to do grass cutting, garbage collection and clearing storm drains.”

Eng Chisango said service delivery was expected to improve once every ward had taken delivery of a tractor.

“We have additional equipment which we want to buy — five refuse compactors,” he said. “For now, we are in the process of securing the funds. If we can get an additional five compactors, the city will be good to go.”

Eng Chisango said the city was appreciative of the Government’s recent clean-up operation.

“We appreciate the Government’s intervention during Operation Chenesa Harare, where they cleared every dumpsite,” he said. “The problem is that we do not have enough equipment to use following the conclusion of the operation.

“During Operation Chenesa Harare, the equipment used was borrowed from various stakeholders that came in to lend a hand.”

Eng Chisango said following the conclusion of the operation, illegal dumpsites quickly re-emerged “due to lack of equipment to remove garbage”.

“If any action is not taken soon, the mountains of dumpsites will be back. Our main aim was to collect garbage continuously throughout the day in order to avoid garbage pileups,” he said.