The Sunday News
Sunday News Reporter
AT least 81 companies based in Bulawayo risk prosecution by the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) if they fail to comply with orders issued to them by the agency for various environmental offences, Sunday News can reveal. The 81 offending companies were issued with the orders following a blitz on industry by EMA between April and November this year.
EMA’s Bulawayo provincial manager, Mr Decent Ndlovu, told Sunday News last week that after issuing the orders, EMA was now monitoring progress being made by each of the offending companies to comply with the orders.
All the sanctioned companies are discharging toxins into the environment and have been ordered to come up with facilities that allow them to capture the toxins and treat waste before releasing it into Bulawayo City Council’s sewer system.
Initially, EMA had given the companies up to June this year to comply with the order, but the firms pleaded for extensions, citing a harsh economic environment inhibiting them from operating at full capacity and raise the required money to comply with the orders.
Some of the organisations descended on by EMA include the local authority itself, which has been rated as the city’s biggest polluter, 58 fuel service stations, Cold Storage Company and Bulawayo Abattoirs, among others.
Bulawayo City Council has been ordered to repair its sewer treatment plant, as well as replacing burst sewer pipes around the city, which are discharging raw sewage into the city’s water bodies.
The 58 service stations were ordered to put in place oil interceptors and oil separators to curb discharge of oil into the environment, while the abattoirs were ordered to repair waste treatment plants at their premises which were discharging untreated waste into the city’s sewer system.
Mr Ndlovu warned that EMA would not resist to take legal action against and cause closure of companies that would have failed to comply with the orders within the agreed period.
“Most of the companies have asked for extension of the period we had given them to comply with our orders and we agreed to extend. Right now we are monitoring the progress the companies are making to comply with various orders we gave them.
“So far we have not ticketed any company, but we will take the route if any of the companies fail to comply with the order. If again they fail to pay whatever fine we would have pegged, then we will go to the courts.
“Most of the companies that we sanctioned are discharging hazardous substances into the city’s sewer system which is also malfunctioning and this has seen the waste going all the way to Umguza River.
“So we have ordered them to put in place waste treatment plants at their premises such that whatever they will be discharging into the city’s sewer system will be treated to meet our standards,” he said.
Sometime in 2012 Bulawayo City Council was fined $5 000, while a number of companies were fined up to $1 000 for environmental crimes that result in the pollution of Umguza River.
Meanwhile, Bulawayo City Council has already started working on rehabilitating the city’s sewer system, with visits to the various cites where there are pipe bursts showing council workers replacing the burst concrete pipes with glass reinforced pipes.
In an effort to comply with the EMA order, the local authority has so far completed desludging Magwegwe ponds and construction of a pump house. A total of 174 out of 220 sand traps have been cleaned and cleared city wide and 301 manhole to manhole sections have also been done. A total of 152 manhole lids have been replaced across the city.
A tour of Bulawayo Abattoirs showed that the company had already complied with EMA’s order with the waste treatment plant now fully functional.
