Mbale’s multibillion recycling plant left to vandals

The Shs1.2 billion Mbale garbage recycling plant has been abandoned and vandalised by unknown people, Monitor has learnt.

The facility was built in 2007 at Doko in Mbale Industrial City Division and launched by the National Environment Management Authority (Nema) in 2009 to address the challenges of solid waste management as part of an agreement with the World Bank to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

 Among other benefits, was that the city would access funds from the World Bank as part of carbon trading.

When Monitor visited the dumping site last Tuesday, we found the plant in a sorry state, with no access as the road is now covered with heaps of garbage. The place has turned bushy.

Mr Jimmy Wandwasi, a former casual worker at the facility, said around 2010, a hailstorm blew the windows from the buildings erected at the site and that there were no repairs.

“What welcomes you to the site are heaps of rotten garbage and buildings without roofs. There is no sign that the garbage will be decomposed into manure as stipulated in the original plan of the project,” he said.

According to Mr Wandwasi, Mbale council leaders failed the project by continuing to tender garbage collection yet the agreement with Nema was that the council would take charge of garbage collection.

Mr Musa Kasajja, the speaker of Mbale Industrial City Division, said the city council failed to manage the recycling plant.

“Even recently, about Shs20 million was released to open the road which goes to the site but it was not opened and we don’t know how the money was spent,” Mr Kasajja said.

The Mbale plant was funded by the World Bank and managed by Nema under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and was meant to help provide affordable fertilizer – about 15 to 20 tonnes per day – to farmers.

Mr Yasin Kawanguzi, the former deputy speaker of the then Mbale Municipality, said the city council never recruited specialists to manage the recycling plant.
“The authorities didn’t give that project priority,” Mr Kawanguzi said. 

Mr Robert Kisesi, the councillor representing North Central Ward in Mbale Northern City Division, alleged that some local leaders, whom he didn’t name, sold part of the dumping site land.

“The matter is being investigated by Police,” he said.
Mr Kisesi said the city council also contracts companies with no capacity to collect garbage. 

“The contractors are instead overcharging the dwellers, forcing some locals to dump the garbage on the street at night,” he said.

Mr James Kutosi, the spokesperson of Mbale City Council, confirmed that the project was abandoned, adding that the technology used in constructing the plant was not appropriate.

“We expected machinery to sort the manure but instead it was people sorting it, which became difficult to manufacture enough manure. It became a failed project,” Mr Kutosi said.

He said the council abandoned the project after realising that it was becoming expensive to manage. “The contractor we had contracted to manage the plant took us to court over an accumulated debt of Shs165 million. We are still paying that money,” he said.

Background
Later in 2019, the then Mbale municipal council again signed a deal with a Swedish investor to manage the town’s waste by turning it into energy/ electricity.

But since then, the project has also not kicked off. Mr Kutosi attributed the delay to the outbreak of Covid-19.