Report blames KCC for delays in phasing out landfill

A sluggish procurement process is frustrating the long awaited progress of phasing out the Nyanza landfill and the preparations to set up a new state of the art garbage facility, The New Times has learnt. The government late last year announced plans to phase out the Nyanza landfill that has been serving as Kigali’s only waste dumping site for more than seven years. The government hopes to phase out the Nyanza landfill by 2013. A report by the Consolidated Waste Management Project in Rwanda seen by The New Times, indicates that the procurement of equipment necessary for the renovation that was slated for the end of last year could not be made due to delay of Kigali City procurement process. The report indicates that despite some support from the Rhineland-Palatinate, which paid for the test drilling, the process was still sluggish. It recommended the direct intervention by the Infrastructure Ministry and UNDP to come up with some concrete measures so that a full Project Management Unit at Kigali City is made possible. The report also pointed out the support from Rhineland-Palatine which has offered to conduct methane gas drilling test. “If this is successful, we could utilize the approach for Nyanza facility renovation. We could also save some funds planned for drilling and we can use the funding to other project activities,” the report reads. The report also recognises the positive aspects of the process saying that although renovation activities at Nyanza site have just started, less fires were breaking out at the site than before. Contacted for clarification on the Kigali City’s slow procurement process, KCC’s Director of Infrastructure, Reuben Ahimbisibwe, who claimed to be unaware of the report, dismissed its contents. “That is not true and I really do not know why they make such reports,” he said. Ahimbisibwe explained that his office last week held a meeting with MININFRA and UNDP officials and agreed that that the work on the landfill was slow, mainly because the Germans and Japanese who had conducted feasibility studies, have delayed in delivering their report. Several experts from the University of Fukuoka in Japan and others from Maine, Germany, had indicated that the Nyanza landfill can be renovated and the garbage reduced to avoid the fires that rage underneath. “We basically could not do anything without the report because we had to agree on the technical path to take. We had no budget and we wrote to UNDP twice requesting for the funds. How can we procure anything without funds on our account? We procure a lot of stuff and our procurement process cannot be called very slow,” he saidLawmakers recently heard that the landfill was increasingly posing health dangers to area residents due to its proximity to the population and the issue of contaminating water used by the public. Ends

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Report blames KCC for delays in phasing out landfill