The Sunday Mail
A fortnight ago, I drove into Harare’s Central Business District (CBD) along Julius Nyerere Way at about 10pm as I headed north towards Samora Machel Avenue. I could not believe my eyes. The amount of dirt that was on that section from Seke Road and Kenneth Kaunda flyover was something else.
Of course, we have often spoken about how Harare has become a really dirty place, but nothing prepared me for what I saw.
There was rubbish strewn all over the place and on both sides of the road. It was as if a truckload of garbage had been offloaded in the middle of the road. It was a really sad sight. People were walking about as if it was daylight. My heart really broke. How had service delivery reached such lows?
The next morning, I called the Harare City Council corporate affairs manager just to inquire why this was so. He said efforts were being made to restore cleanliness, but the major problem was that vendors were now coming into town in their numbers in the evenings to sell their wares, capitalising on the volumes of people up and about the CBD throughout the night.
But what did that have to do with the levels of dirt given that these days there are bins at most corners and after every few metres along the roads? It was a question I asked myself, but did not have an immediate answer.
Is it because we no longer care about our environs? Could it be failure by the city council to collect garbage that has normalised throwing dirt everywhere because there…
MMP News Author
Source link
