BULAWAYO – The government has imposed Geo Pomona as Bulawayo’s waste management partner, abruptly ending the city’s independent search for a company to provide the service.
Local government minister Daniel Garwe descended on the city on Thursday accompanied by Geo Pomona chief executive Dilesh Nguwaya and, curiously, Rosemary Kalapurakal, the United Nations resident coordinator in Zimbabwe and the UN’s senior-most official in the country.
Garwe told Bulawayo mayor David Coltart and town clerk Christopher Dube that Geo Pomona would take over waste management in the city with or without the local authority’s consent.
He said cabinet had approved the replication of Geo Pomona’s Harare model in all cities, effectively sidelining the competitive procurement process Bulawayo had initiated.
“There is a precedent in terms of the law that has been set. Cabinet made a decision that a private project be implemented in the city of Harare,” Garwe said.
“Once that private project has become successful, we replicate it here and you have no authority whatsoever to resist a Cabinet decision. Please take note.
“If it becomes difficult for your town clerk to implement the directive I am giving now, that directive will be implemented from central government and we’ll just give you our position and we move forward.
“Mr Mayor, we are engaging Geo Pomona. If you cannot, you tell us right away and we’ll do it and move forward. We don’t want to continue wasting time. I told you earlier that we came here to make decisions and positive decisions, not to be moving around in circles as if we don’t understand what we are doing.”
Bulawayo had invited companies to submit expressions of interest for waste management, attracting bids from several local companies. The process stalled after the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) said the city first needed to conduct a feasibility study.
Some council officials fear the delay was deliberate and intended to clear the way for Geo Pomona.
The government’s dramatic intervention comes as Bulawayo urgently seeks a solution to air pollution caused by the burning of waste at Ngozi Mine, the city’s main dumpsite near Cowdray Park and Richmond.
Thick black smoke from the dump routinely blankets neighbouring communities, including Luveve and Emakhandeni.
Garwe said President Emmerson Mnangagwa had personally taken an interest in the crisis.
“We came here with clear instructions from my principal that the Ngozi Mine situation is now of great concern to the President and solutions must be provided now,” he said.
“What is of concern now is the existence of irregularity, the existence of disorderliness, the existence of lack of cleanliness in all of Bulawayo and the existence of Ngozi Mine, which is now polluting the air.
“In this beautiful City of Kings and Queens, we have had several meetings to replicate exactly what is happening in Harare in terms of waste collection and waste management, and we want to deliver value chain to all other cities, and we said our next station is the City of Bulawayo.”
In Harare, the government directed the city to engage Geo Pomona under a 30-year agreement, with the company reportedly charging up to US$40,000 a day, or at least US$2.7 million a month, for waste collection.
When Harare said it did not have the money to meet the bill, the government said it would redirect part of the city’s devolution funds to Geo Pomona.
Garwe told Bulawayo officials that Geo Pomona was a “tried and tested institution in terms of waste management” and there was therefore no need to start another competitive bidding process.
“I was speaking with the mayor in the morning during the briefing, and I said what used to be a common dumpsite in Harare is now home to beautiful football grounds, is now home to a world-class restaurant, is now home to a waste management processing plant and is now going to be home to a medical waste processing plant, among many others,” he said.
“We said if the ball is round, we have no reason to want to redesign it. It’s already round. What we can only do is to play.”
Garwe said Bulawayo could proceed with a feasibility study to determine the scope and design of its waste management system, but central government had already decided that Geo Pomona should begin work as early as October.
“You can go ahead and get the feasibility study, but in central government we are telling you now, unequivocally, we are going ahead, ensuring that we engage the company to do the work,” he said.
“Solutions will not come from ZIDA, but us, and ZIDA will provide advice to what we want to achieve.
“We will not be bogged down by ZIDA. We have demanded that the feasibility study be carried out for us to be able to go ahead and engage either Geo Pomona or whoever, in this case it’s Geo Pomona.”
Garwe gave the council just one week to finalise and sign an agreement with the company.
“I want to see the memorandum of agreement next week for signature,” he directed.
Nguwaya said Geo Pomona would prioritise employing local residents, including people who have settled at Ngozi Mine and survive by scavenging through the waste.
“Importing labour from Harare would be too expensive for us anyway. Our model is to absorb the council’s waste collectors and also the people that survive from Ngozi Mine who would have to move once we come in,” he said.
“We are going to start by mining the dump as soon as we sign the Memorandum of Understanding with the city fathers. We have the equipment and capacity, and we are ready to do the work.”
