By Weswa Ronnie
MBALE CITY
Mbale City Mayor, Cassim Namugali has today Tuesday, 26th March, 2024 initiated the clearing and managing of the Doko landfill with the aim of addressings the city’s garbage disposal challenges.
The city garbage dumping site has been a big challenge for many years, but the mayor is clearing it to accommodate garbage from various sectors, to improve on cleanliness in the city.
Mr. Joseph Osekeny, Mbale City Health Educator says he was appointed by the city Mayor to oversee the landfill’s transformation process.
Osekeny said, the city administration has decided to revive the compost dumping site. It has been completely out of order, and the garbage has been causing horrible conditions closer to the highway.
“As city Council, we felt it was unacceptable, that’s why we’re here to restore this place to its original state and ensuring proper waste management practices to create a cleaner environment,” Mr Osekeny said.
Osekeny said Mbale City receives a large daily population influx and that therefore, the effective disposal of garbage is crucial. The revitalization of the Doko landfill aims to establish a reliable waste disposal system, facilitating the smooth transportation of garbage and encouraging private garbage collectors to operate efficiently.
“We’re going to make sure this place doesn’t go back to the old stage with measures such as deploying scouts to monitor illegal dumping, constructing roads and put murram for easy access, and encouraging the use of appropriate garbage collection vehicles (Tipping vehicles),” Osekeny says.
In an interview with our reporter, Namugali, said the revival will bring hope because it has been a major concern in the city adding that they believe that after clearing the site, there will be no heaps of garbage on the streets.
“The problem is that we lack the machines, but we received the bulldozer and excavator for free from the Sino-Uganda Mbale Industrial Park. We just cover the costs of fueling and paying workers,” he said.
Namugali said “I instructed the town clerk to put up a budget for fencing off this place, planting trees around it and planting flowers in front to make the place beautiful.”
Namugali urged traders and households not to put garbage in the middle of the road saying such areas were reserved for beautification purposes where grass and flowers are to be planted.
“This will attract many investors who will come and establish manufacturing companies and provide jobs for our people,” he says adding that City residents should be patient as authorities clean the city.
