- Coast-based veteran hotelier Mohammed Hersi early this year asked the residents living around VoK and its environs to come out and protest the continued illegal dumping of waste in the area.
- In November last year, the national government ordered for the closure of the dumpsite.
Image: LABAN WALLOGA
An environmental lobby, Clean Mombasa CBO, has faulted the Mombasa county for failing to close the VoK dumpsite in Nyali subcounty.
The group claimed that the dumpsite is illegal and continues to pose a health risk to thousands of residents living around the area.
Speaking on Friday, head of the CBO Edwin Muinga Chokwe asked Mombasa county to immediately close the dumpsite.
He also asked the county to immediately issue an approval to the Kenya Broadcasting Corporation to construct a perimeter wall around the land.
“The VoK illegal dumpsite should be closed immediately and KBC allowed to construct a perimeter wall to stop further dumping,” Muinga said.
At one point, Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho led a group of residents and county askaris to bring down a perimeter wall that was being constructed by KBC, further escalating the row between the county and the state-owned media.
Muinga said it is saddening to see that the county also seemed to be a player in the dumping of solid waste at an unsanctioned landfill.
He added that the dumpsite was a danger to wananchi as a number of residents have complained of chest pains due to continuous inhalation of the smoke coming from the burning waste.
“They have refused to give KBC the authority to build a perimeter wall. They have also failed to enforce clean-up of the area, although individuals and other private sectors have also joined in dumping waste at the site and the buck stops with the county,” he said.
Muinga further called on the county to fence all dumpsites and implement modern recycling and garbage management methods.
He said this will lead to a clean environment and provide jobs to the youth and hence mitigate grinding poverty.
Coast-based veteran hotelier Mohammed Hersi early this year asked the residents living around VoK and its environs to come out and protest the continued illegal dumping of waste in the area.
In a Facebook post on January 1, Hersi also asked the Nyali residents and North Coast Ratepayers and Residents Association for failing to show enough anger to deal with the situation.
“The poor do not generate that garbage, all that rubbish is from Links road and the myriad of eateries, shame on you. You opt to pay Sh300 a month since you find Sh1,500 too high to get a proper garbage company to ferry your filth,” read part of the post.
“To you VOK and Bombolulu residents, please grow some spine and take charge of your destiny and your health. Usijifanye mnyonge, you don’t deserve the garbage and VOK is not a designated dumpsite. Wacheni kulaza damu, when you contract an ailment it becomes a personal battle,” he wrote.
He asked Mombasa county to bow its head in shame and prioritise the closure of the site in 2022.
Some of the residents living around the area complained that the smoke coming from the garbage has begun to bring chest complications to children.
“They burn the garbage every day and it emits a lot of smoke that fills the house making it difficult to stay inside. The children have been coughing and complaining of chest pains,” Okello Malla said.
His sentiments were echoed by Elizabeth Pendo who said that the garbage not only puts their health at risk but security too.
She said some of the youth who scavenge for scrap plastic from the dumpsite are criminals who steal from unsuspecting people, especially women heading to the market early in the morning.
In November last year, the national government ordered for the closure of the dumpsite.
This was after the Environment Chief Administrative Secretary Mohamed Elmi led a team of senior government officials from the National Environmental Complaints Committee and National Government Administration officers on a tour of the dumpsite.
Mombasa county said efforts to decommission the VoK dumpsite have been in place.
The Environment executive Godfrey Nato said previously the site had been closed down.
"We even planted trees after clearing the area, but we found youth still dumping garbage in the area," he said.
Nato added that garbage issue at VoK is occasioned by lack of cooperation from the youth groups that have been authorised to collect garbage in the area.
He said whenever they send trucks to collect garbage, they find it has been dumped all over the area.
The VoK landfill is a holding site, before the garbage is collected and dumped in Mwakirunge in Kisauni.
"The youth groups in VoK are not cooperative. They are supposed to dump the garbage in trucks, but they do not do that. We also suspect that there are private companies, which collect waste using motorised means and dump them at VoK at night," Nato said.
He added that the county has capacity to only manage between 56 to 60 per cent of all generated waste in the county. The county produces about two tonnes of waste per day.
(edited by Amol Awuor)