Adolf Ayoreka | Tayari News
MBARARA – The Mbarara City leadership is on the spot for taking baby steps in their role of ensuring proper waste disposal and garbage management in town.
For over a month, heaps of garbage, which include biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste, have been seen on major roads and streets of Mbarara town, like Maj. Victor Bwana road, Kakoba, and Mbaguta.
In 2018, the Mbarara city council contracted private companies like Homeklin and Tati Waste Company, among others, to collect garbage from waste generators at a small fee.
Denis Musinguzi, the Mbarara City South youth councillor, who doubles as a biodiversity engineer, told this publication that waste management is everyone’s responsibility.
“The garbage we see on these roads and streets is dumped there at night by people who don’t want to pay for the waste that they generate, and this becomes hard for the contractors to collect such garbage without being paid”, Musinguzi remarked.
“However, the council also needs to supervise these contractors to see whether they are doing the right work. We have a serious leadership challenge in Mbarara city. When you look at that garbage on Maj. Victor Bwana, that garbage has spent over two weeks uncollected, and it is stinking,” he charged.
In February 2024, several traders and landlords were arrested and remanded to prison after they were found littering garbage on major streets in Mbarara town. This was achieved by carrying out night and early morning operations by the City council enforcement team.
The effort created sanity in the city, but over the last month, laxity has been spotted among the enforcement, with heaps of garbage lying on the streets.
According to Musinguzi, the city council should pass stringent measures that prohibit residents from littering waste on the streets.
” We have another challenge of open manholes in the central business district of Mbarara town, where people pour in garbage, human waste and plastic bottles, and when it remains, all is washed away into R.Rwizi, which is our major source of water. This is alarming and needs urgent intervention.” Said Musinguzi
He called upon factories to desist from discharging untreated effluent to the public, arguing that this puts the lives of Ugandans at risk of contracting diseases.