The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Environmental Management Authority (EMA) is working on devolving its testing laboratory services, with a branch to be opened in Bulawayo soon that will cater for the southern region.
In an interview on the sidelines of the he Environmental Management Strategic Dialogue in Bulawayo last week Thursday, EMA Director Environmental Protection, Mr Christopher Mushava said plans were underway to have a testing laboratory opened in Bulawayo.
“As EMA we have taken a decision to say we would want to build a laboratory in Bulawayo which will cater for the whole of the Southern region because we have realised that it takes quite long to transport samples from Hwange, Binga or Victoria Falls to Harare because we currently have a centralised laboratory.
“The strategic that we have is that either this year, 2024 into 2025 we need to have a devolved structure in terms of laboratory services hence the starting point is going to be Bulawayo but obviously the details of where and how big and all that will be made public in due course,” said Mr Mushava.
The centalised laboratory in Harare currently carries out nationwide soil testing, water testiong pollution and air quality tests among others.
He said their thrust this year was the need to engage stakeholders in as far as environmental management and compliance was concerned.
Mr Mushava said the observation was that most of the cities were not as clean as they were expected to be which has resulted in major environmental problems as wastewater or effluent management, solid waste management and illegal dumps.
“These are some of the major environmental issues that we are facing from our burden cities and we believe from these engagements we should be able to make sure that our cities get cleaner to the state that we want,” he added.
Commenting on most water bodies in urban areas, he said they were heavy polluted by sewerage discharge into the environment and illegal waste dumping which could also be washed away by the rains into the rivers among others.
Mr Mushava said in some cities pollution was taking place in up streams which will then result in dams in the down streams having unsafe water for both human and animal consumption.
“This then leads to outbreaks of health diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery, while the costs associated with treating such water bodies becomes quite high.”
He said as since 2011, a total of 36 orders and seven tickets have been issued to Bulawayo City Council (BCC) which are environmental protection orders.
Mr Mushava said some of these orders had to do with waste collection in most areas around the city and accumulation of illegal dumpsites, while since 2010 four dockets have been opened resulting in four court cases with one being at the high court.
“We wanted to compel them to do waste collection timeously and possibly invest in waste collection which is quite key because you need proper infrastructure to be able to manage waste at city level. There is need to invest in infrastructure that includes refuse compactors, sweepers and even mechanical sweeping which other cities are doing,” he said.
“We were also issuing them fines to make sure that they compile and we had to go to the extent of opening dockets for the local authority to make sure that they are prosecuted. All being efforts to make sure that we keep our city clean and we were using legislative instruments that are at our disposal.”
In terms of the Richmond Landfill site popularly known as Ngozi Mine which is nearby Cowdray Park, Mr Mushava said there has been issues of burning which was causing air pollution and affecting residents.
He said there was need for better coordination and management at local authority level and the burning had to be stopped.
