The Chamber of Deputies has directed the Ministry of Infrastructure to come up with a roadmap of activities to construct the Nduba Modern Landfill, the budget it will take, as well as submit quarterly progress reports on the execution of the project.

The resolution was made on Wednesday, October 07, after parliament adopted the report by the Standing Committee on Economy and Trade on the state of hygiene and the management of the Nduba Landfill in Gasabo District, Kigali.

According to the report by the committee, an assessment of the landfill, where much of the garbage in Kigali is dumped, its current state pauses a major health hazard to the people living in surrounding areas.

Also, MPs said that the wastes dumped there are mixed – those which are decomposable with those that are not – which increases the cost of sorting them.

"There is a lack of means to make use of the wastes through transforming them into fertilisers, briquettes and gas as it is done elsewhere (in some countries),” said MP Théogène Munyangeyo, Chairperson of the Standing Committee on Economy and Trade.

Unplanned expenditure

The Committee found that the landfill was used without a feasibility study since 2012 after the closure of Nyanza Dumpsite in Kicukiro and that expenses on unplanned activities related to the landfill continue to rise.

By December 2015, the City of Kigali had used Rwf1.3 billion on the management of waste at Nduba landfill, and more than Rwf569 million on the expropriation of the residents who were living around the site, according to the committee.

It said that the City of Kigali indicated that there are activities related to the landfill which involve continuous expenses, but that the problem could be addressed once a plant that would turn the wastes into energy, gas and fertilisers – depending on the type of wastes – is put in place.

Given such issues, the lawmakers proposed that the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) should assess the management and appro of the budget intended for the construction of the modern Nduba Landfill.

The committee found that the waste at the landfill was putting the health of the residents in its vicinity at risk.

Meanwhile, Munyangeyo said that the landfill’s site has expanded from the initial nine hectares to 74 hectares currently. 

That move, he said, resulted in the expropriation of 100 more families who would be affected by the landfill as they are within the boundaries of its site.