KIGALI - The Minister for Lands and Environment, Stanislas Kamanzi, has said that the issue of the Nyanza waste dumping site will soon be history, since plans to phase it out are underway.

Kamanzi, who appeared before the Parliament to address issues raised on environment, said that the Nyanza site was put up without any prior planning and is one of the unfortunate inheritances that the current government got from the past administration.

"The biggest problem with the Nyanza site is that it receives indiscriminate waste that ranges from medical to solid and liquid and this, if not taken care of, can harm human lives and the environment,” he said

He told the lawmakers that to date; Fukuoka University of Japan has undertaken a research that is specifying to the government how the Nyanza landfill issue can be taken care of Kamanzi pointed out to the lawmakers that his ministry was planning to set up a dumping site in each district to take care of all the issues of waste management.

"Basing on our plans, we hope that each district can have its own state-of-the-art landfill. REMA will help us and carry out its usual work of determining if the sites won’t cause harm,” he said  Kamanzi also explained that plans were underway to set up a factory that will deal with recycling of solid waste.

UNDP together with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Kigali City Council will contribute US$3m towards setting up of the new proposed landfill to replace the current one at Nyanza. 

The Project Coordinator, Toshi Moto, told The New Times that one site has been recommended by both German and Japanese teams. Kamanzi said the new site is close to the brick factory on the way to Gitarama.

"I have not prepared the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) site selection process yet. Once I prepare it, I will submit the document to RDB and REMA for approval”.

KCC is currently facing challenges where various waste management activities related to waste collection, waste selection and recycling, and waste dumping, are being conducted by various groups without any harmonized institutional framework.

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