NAIROBI, August 29 – The National Environment Management Authority has given the Nairobi City Council a three months notice to ensure efficiency in garbage collection and disposal within the city centre and its environs.
NEMA said it was concerned on the amount of garbage piling up at different locations in the city and its environs.
“As an institution mandated to co-ordinate and supervise all matters on environment in the country, we are greatly disturbed by the continuous accumulation of this uncollected garbage,” NEMA Director General Muusya Mwinzi said.
He noted that the accumulation of uncollected garbage is not only a health hazard but also an eyesore to the general public.
“NEMA recognises your efforts in the beautification of Nairobi City. In the light of the success of the beautification of the Central Business District on major highways heading into the city, we advise that you upscale the exercise to cover the residential and industrial areas, and indeed the whole city,” he said in a statement.
Mwinzi said if the city council failed to comply with the notice, the authority may direct any lead agency to perform the task or perform the duty itself at the expense of the city council.
He said this was part of the Nairobi Rivers Basin Programme aimed at cleaning up the Nairobi dam and providing proper solid waste management.
It states: “The Authority may, after giving reasonable notice of its intention to do so, direct any lead agency to perform, within such time and in such a manner as it specify, any of the duties imposed upon the lead agency by or under this Act or any other written law, in the field of environment and if the lead agency fails to comply with such directions, the Authority may itself perform or cause to be performed the duties in question, and the expense incurred by it in so doing shall be a civil debt recoverable by the Authority from the lead agency”.
The issuance of the notice Friday came less than two weeks after the authority shut down five slaughter houses in Nairobi’s Dagoretti area for discharging effluent into the Nairobi River.
The abattoirs had failed to meet a three months deadline to create proper disposal methods.
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