Company loses contract to manage city landfill

The City of Kigali has terminated the contract with Green and White Investment Limited, a company that has been managing the Nduba dumping site, citing failure to comply with terms. Bruno Rangira, the City director of media and communication, said the company was given three hectares to use, but they [the company] widened the land to 13 hectares. This paper understands the contract was terminated last week.“We had agreed that they would use three hectares and leave the remaining eight for recycling activities to turn waste into useful products, for the waste to be profitable instead of posing a threat to the communities in the vicinity,” said Rangira. He said such “poor management” is the reason the previous site located in Nyanza, Kicukiro District, was closed. Through recycling, the company is expected to produce fertilisers and charcoal bricks. Jean Damascène Ndayambaje, the representative of Green and White Limited Company, said they, too, wished to terminate the contract, claiming the City did not fulfil some of its obligations.“We agreed they should build roads at the site to facilitate disposal, but they did not,” he said.Ndayambaje said during the rainy season, trucks cannot reach the site, dumping waste half-way.Denial The company also denies using the 13 hectares, saying they took one-and-a-half extra hectares and they had already brought the machines for recycling. “The City is not supportive and it is no longer a viable business. I think the City still wants to manage the landfill as was the case for Nyanza,” Ndayambaje said. However, Rangira said the City demarcated roads soon after signing the contract with White and Green Limited in May last year. Patrice Munyaneza, the financial manager at Cooped, a cleaning and recycling company in Kigali, said if a company is overloaded by the garbage, capacity to manage them becomes challenging.In the cleaning industry, Rangira said, there has been progress, especially in garbage collection, with companies no longer creating transit dumpsite in the city, before carrying them to Nduba site as it was the practice in the past. With the termination of the contract, the City will repossess the site management within 45 days while looking for another firm to manage waste. Rangira added that bidders will have to make recycling a priority. “We will apply if the City opens the tender to manage the dumpsite; we qualify for it,” Munyaneza said. John Mugabo, the City officer in charge of waste management, last year told this paper that cleaning companies collect 186 tonnes of solid waste daily. Of these, he said, only two per cent get recycled. Nduba dumpsite is located in Muremure Cell, Nduba Sector in Gasabo District. The Rwf1.3b facility replaced the decade-old Nyanza-Kicukiro dumping site.

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Company loses contract to manage city landfill