How authorities are fighting garbage in Kamuli

For the past three years, Kamuli Municipality has choked on the garbage, leading to demonstrations and precipitating fears of a cholera outbreak.

The garbage concern went viral across social media platforms which called for an urgent intervention while authorities grappled with enforcement and by-laws on public and personal hygiene and sanitation management in the municipality.

But over the past three months, Mr Aziz Luwano, the Kamuli municipality Mayor has pooled resources and manpower to repair the grounded municipal truck and tractor and supervised the emptying of garbage bankers.

Mr Luwano, a civil and public works contractor, then rallied residents to ensure that garbage is regularly disposed of and on a daily basis and employed a ‘garbage lieutenant’ to sensitise the locals on the collection time, point and procedures, which readies them for the arrival of the tractor while they do self-loading.

Road gangs that hitherto dug and cleared garbage off clogged channels have also been brought into the system.

During the mayoral campaigns, residents pegged their votes to the candidate with the best garbage-management programme due to the filth, and stench from the garbage skips.

“Garbage was one of the driving forces to my taking up the leadership of this new municipality and I like a clean, smart environment; so this is going to be my demand-driven priority,” Mr Luwano said.

Mr Richard Eyaru, the Kamuli municipality deputy Town Clerk, described the strategy to clear garbage as ‘purely the Mayor’s effort using his own equipment, manpower, and initiative’, which they must cope with.

Mr Eyaru further explained that the municipal authorities gave the Mayor an unsolicited go-ahead because it had no [cash] releases and he was an expert in this field, having worked in different civil and public management works.

“We are happy with his personal efforts and since it was in the interest of the community and being the leader herein, he needed neither permission nor hindrance,” Mr Eyaru said.

He added that one of the waste-management innovations the Mayor introduced was the door-to-door collection of garbage using a tractor that picks the garbage from designated points; or when the residents have piled it up for collection by the tractor instead of heaping it into the garbage bankers.

Garbage collection, disposal, and management against poor local revenue collection and political transition, garbage collection remain a key role of urban authorities, requiring privatisation and not only the government provision of trucks, Mr Henry Munaaba Dhikusooka, a local investor and management consultant said.

Mr Dhikusooka reckons privatisation of garbage collection to companies and giving them a threshold to man the garbage points is the way to go.

Earlier, Goes Municipality from Holland teamed up with Kamuli, which saw the district get waste bankers, generators for schools, and land secured for dumping waste before it is processed into compost.

Mr Sam Bakaki, the Kamuli District environment officer, outlined the effects of garbage, saying it was not only tainting the municipality’s image but is also a ‘nuisance’.

“Environmentally speaking, this has been a big relief as the garbage has become a health hazard, emitting a lot of gases and at worst a potential for disease outbreaks,” he said.

He called for a streamlined system of sustainability that starts from the household to the dumping site where the garbage should be changed into wealth.

“Going forward, the municipal council has acquired a landfill to convert the garbage into wealth and we are in the final process,” he revealed.

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