Kimberly Kusauka
Progress at the recently commissioned landfill at Cambria Farm has been slow, with Masvingo councilors blaming management for failure to meet the target they had agreed on.
In a recent full council meeting, councilors accused the engineering department of being incompetent, saying they deliberately misled them on progress at the site.
Mayor Cllr Collen Maboke took the engineering department to task for misleading him in 2021 when they told him about progress at the landfill.
“You lied to me last year when you said that the new land fill will be ready for use by September. I told the media and they are here so you should tell them the truth.
“Right now you are proposing that you will finish work after rainy season, you do not know when the rains will stop and from my own point of view you have failed to that end,” Cllr Maboke said.
Maboke’s sentiments were echoed by Deputy Mayor Cllr Wellington Mahwende who said the state of the old dump site is not pleasing as it presents a likely health disaster to the residents nearby.
“Refuse situation is worsening at the old dump site, it is getting into people’s houses,” said Cllr Mahwende.
Masvingo Acting Town Engineer Kudzaishe Mbetu however stood his ground and convinced the councilors that the situation was under control.
“We cannot do any work as of now since we are in the rainy season. Our tippers will sink in the mud. We are also having financial challenges, but we promise that we will finish work in two months’ time after the rainy season. In terms of progress we are 80 percent complete,” said Eng Mbetu.
The time that the engineering department is suggesting that they would have finished the work at Cambria farm was however said to be unrealistic basing on the fact that they were supposed to have started using it last year.
Council had targeted to finish two cells out of 16 and completing the whole project by 2025.
