NMS to shut down 82 illegal dumpsites

The Nairobi Metropolitan Services has struck a financial blow to garbage collection cartels with its decision to close 82 illegal dumpsites.

The NMS has at the same time designated 35 new solid waste collection points in the city.

President Uhuru Kenyatta had on March 18, ordered the Major-General Mohamed Abdalla Badi-led team to crack down on illegal dumpsites and enforce effluent discharge regulations.

In his 100-days delivery report to the President on Tuesday, Badi said they had identified and mapped 110 illegal dumping sites in Nairobi.

Eighty-two of them have been cleared of waste and the enforcement of closure is ongoing, he said.

Some 122 illegal discharge points had been identified and action taken against them. Out of that number, 102 were polluting a river.

Badi, who is the NMS director-general, said the presidential directive on environment protection such as garbage collection and disposal had been observed in the past 100 days.

Grounded garbage collection equipment had also been reactivated.

A 2003-2017 analysis by the African Research Journal of Education and Social Science showed that illegal dumpsites were mainly in Embakasi, Kibera and Lavington.

Embakasi had a large spatial dumping area of 16.2 acres in 2002 and 37.2 acres in 2017, an indicaction of the growing unplanned dumpsites in the area. The comparative figures for Lavington were 0.62 acres and 1.3 acres.

The figures for Kibera in the study period were 1.36 acres and 3.39 acres.

The NMS has since its creation cleared more than 70 per cent garbage backlog. It collects an average of 2,500 tonnes of garbage daily compared to 1,000 tonnes previously.

The National Youth Service has been contracted to collect garbage across the 85 county wards.

According to NMS Environment Directorate, the target is to dispose of an average of 3,000 tonnes daily at Dandora dumpsite.

“The National Youth Service has played a critical role in this endeavour and the city is slowly regaining its glory as garbage heaps are diminishing every day,” Badi noted.

Early in March, the city, including the Central Business District, was choking in filth after garbage contractors boycotted work due to non-payment for three months.

The county government blamed the state of affairs on internal wrangles at the Finance department.

The President had in March ordered the repair of the grounded garbage collection trucks. Only 10 out of 60 trucks were functional.

Badi reported that 32 trucks had been repaired. They will be distributed in the sub-counties at the beginning of this financial year.

The Dandora dumpsite, which is Nairobi’s main dumpsite, holds more than 1.8 million tonnes of solid waste against a 500,000-tonne capacity.

There have been plans to build an electricity generation plant at the site. However, former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero said in August 2016 that a deal with German firm EMC Solution to build a Sh28 billion power plant had failed.

In July 2018, Governor Mike Sonko announced plans to set up an energy recycling plant also at a cost of Sh28 billion. He said the county was in the final stages of awarding a contract for its construction.

The plant was to convert the waste into 160MW clean and renewable energy daily. The waste-to-energy recycling plant came a cropper, the excuse in August last year being that it would take long to be set up.

In October 2019, City Hall said it intended to convert the Dandora dumpsite into a recreational park after it is decommissioned. The idea is one of the highlights in the county's Annual Development Plan 2020-21.

Last February, Embakasi North MP James Gakuya and his Gatundu South counterpart Moses Kuria accused the county government of neglecting the dumpsite and turning it into a cash cow.

They asked the National Government to take over the management of the dumpsite if City Hall was not up to the task.

Deputy President William Ruto complained it had taken too long for the county government to look for modern ways of managing the dumpsite.

“We had agreed with your governor [Sonko] that it was necessary for us to look into modern ways of addressing this dumpsite, but that has not happened,” he said.

All eyes are now on Badi and his team on how it will handle the Dandora dumpsite, which continues to adversely affect the health of nearby residents.

- mwaniki fm