The latest coming out of Kicukiro is the mayor’s fears over possible public health hazards arising out of environmental pollution. Kicukiro is home to Nyanza Garbage site, the dumping ground, in other words, for the whole of Kigali City. The site is in a precarious position: atop a hill, meaning that effluents can very easily slope down to the low-lying areas, dispensing pollution.

This is merely part of Kigali City’s headache as far as pollution and the environment are concerned. There is the chronic outcry about many high-rise buildings in the city not having proper sewerage disposal systems.

Many have been closed by city authorities because of this, citing environmental concerns, but have almost always been reopened promptly without any clear justification.

All of the affected premises decry the high costs of constructing proper sewerage treatment plants.

The take about all this is that the city authorities have also accepted the plea, and indeed KCC will by the end of this year have started a multi-million project aimed at ridding the city of sewerage problems.

The study that came up with the Frw2.3 billion sewerage project, this paper is opining, should have covered other aspects of pollution like garbage collection and disposal, so that there is no need for commissioning another study and separate funding.

There is no doubt that Kigali is a fast-expanding city, and will need all the proper planning to get it out of the clutches of big problems that come with over-expansion. It will be a big achievement to have properly running sewer systems.

But it will also be a disappointment to have ever piling garbage causing problems to the environment, that could have easily been solved at the time the big clean-up was being engineered.

KCC could consider this and see whether a review is not necessary.
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