Gweru to privatise refuse collection Council turns beerhall into offices
CASH-STRAPPED Gweru City Council is seeking to privatise refuse collection amid revelations that its ageing fleet is now expensive to run.
In an interview yesterday, Gweru town clerk Ms Elizabeth Gwatipedza said they were seeking to engage private contractors to collect solid waste in the city’s high-density suburbs.
“The reason we want to privatise refuse collection is because our ageing fleet is now failing to meet demand due to constant breakdowns.
“We want to improve on service delivery especially refuse collection and to achieve this, we have said let’s engage private players who own four to 10 tonne trucks to do the job.
“We are looking at truckers who stay in those suburbs to improve on efficiency,” she said.
Ms Gwatipedza said the council was struggling to service its refuse trucks which she said was now very old with no readily available spares. GWERU City Council has set aside $30 000 to convert one of its defunct beerhalls, which used to be run by Go Beer Brewery, into a revenue hall.
Gweru town clerk Ms Elizabeth Gwatipedza said the local authority was turning Senga beerhall into administration offices to cater for residents in Senga, Nehosho and Makusha suburbs.
The new revenue hall will start operating soon.
“We have set aside $30 000 to convert Senga beerhall into a revenue hall to improve revenue collection. Council has realised that there is need to increase revenue collection points so that residents are able to settle their bills timeously and without hustles,”
“The council has seven refuse trucks, but they are now old. They she said.
She said the administration offices will also house various departments, including those that deal with sewage and health services.
Ms Gwatipedza said the move
are no longer reliable and most of them are very expensive to maintain. was necessitated by the need to bring services closer to residents for their convenience.
The revenue hall will be the second beerhall that has been turned into a revenue hall after council successfully turned Mkoba 16 beerhall last year into an administrative office.
Most of council beerhalls that used to be operated by Go Beer are now defunct, with a few sublet to private business operators.
Ms Gwatipedza said council also set aside $20 000 which will be used for upgrading the Gweru Mutasa Cemetery in Ascot suburb.
“We want to upgrade the central cemetery (Mutasa cemetery) as we want to build a storeroom and other amenities to be used my mourners,” she said.
“When there is a breakdown, they spend close to three months in the garage because the spare parts are not readily available. The trucks were supplied by a German company and the parts are not found locally,” she said.
Ms Gwatipedza said the pilot project by private refuse trucks will be done in high-density suburbs.
“We are starting with high density suburbs while the council will continue to collect refuse in low density suburbs. If this pilot project becomes a success, we will surrender the whole project to private players,” she said.
Ms Gwatipedza said privatising refuse collection will save council a significant sum of money.
“When it succeeds, it means we will no longer need refuse collection team. When we came up with this idea of privatising, the health department had indicated that the refuse collection department was understaffed so instead of employing, we said lets privatise and let residents also participate in refuse collection by working with contractors in their areas,” she said.