Town Clerk forcing Bulawayo to comply with Geo Pomona directive?

BULAWAYO Town Clerk Christopher Dube's department has recommended that the city's mayor and councillors comply with Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe's directive to engage Harare-based Geo Pomona Waste Management (GPWM) to address the city's worsening waste management crisis.

The recommendation was contained in a September 14 memo from the Town Clerk's department to Mayor David Coltart and councillors, titled "Ministerial Directive to engage Geo Pomona Waste Management (GPWM)".

The memo also recommends that council grant management authority to engage the company and report back to councillors on the outcome of the discussions.

According to the memo, council had already embarked on a process to engage private companies in solid waste management before receiving Garwe's latest directive.

It said council received a ministerial circular in June 2025 advising local authorities to engage private players in solid waste management. A special council meeting held on July 2, 2025 subsequently resolved that management should initiate procurement processes and deal with unsolicited bids in terms of the ZIDA Act.

"Subsequently procurement processes were initiated and three compliant bids were received in October 2025," the memo said.

The bids were forwarded to the Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (ZIDA) for consideration and guidance following advice from the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe in November 2025.

The memo said engagements with ZIDA continued, with council submitting a pre-feasibility study on June 23, 2026 for onward submission to the Public-Private Partnership committee.

The committee was scheduled to consider the proposal on September 8.

However, while council was awaiting a response from ZIDA, it received a verbal directive from Garwe on September 10 to engage GPWM to address the city's solid waste management challenges.

The Town Clerk's department has now recommended that council comply with the directive, authorise management to engage GPWM and require management to report back to council on the discussions.

The recommendation places council in a difficult position, as the municipality had already initiated a procurement process involving private-sector bidders before central government's intervention.

The directive comes as Bulawayo grapples with a severe waste management crisis centred on the Richmond Landfill, also known as the Ngozi Mine dumpsite.

The landfill has been plagued by illegal dumping, inadequate equipment and environmental hazards, with underground fires reportedly burning for prolonged periods due to trapped methane and the accumulation of poorly managed waste.

Residents in surrounding areas, including Cowdray Park, Emakhandeni and Luveve, have complained about smoke from the landfill, while concerns have also been raised over flies, rodents and the site's proximity to schools and residential communities.

Residents have reported respiratory problems, coughing and chest pains, although the extent to which these conditions are directly attributable to the landfill has not been independently established.

Coltart has previously said the city faces a significant infrastructure backlog, including a shortage of refuse bins and a critical shortage of functioning compactors required to maintain the landfill.

The crisis has increasingly developed into a political and governance dispute between central government, the municipality, residents and civil society groups.

Government wants Bulawayo to engage GPWM and replicate the waste management and waste-to-energy approach associated with the company's operations at the Pomona dumpsite in Harare.

However, some Bulawayo residents' associations, civil society organisations and councillors have opposed the directive, arguing that the municipality should follow established procurement and public consultation processes.

They have also raised concerns over local government autonomy and the potential exclusion of local companies that had participated in council's earlier procurement process.

The latest council memo, however, indicates that management is now preparing to engage GPWM in line with the ministerial directive.

The outcome of those engagements is expected to determine whether the Geo Pomona model will be adopted in Bulawayo and how it will be reconciled with the procurement process already initiated by council.