The logistics of refuelling the trucks and repairing them have been identified as the main impediments to effective garbage collection/COURTESY
NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 21 – Of the 60 garbage collection trucks launched by Governor Mike Sonko in November, only 22 are operational due to breakdowns and delayed repairs.
This was revealed through a report by the Environment and Natural Resource Committee of the County Assembly after they conducted a fact-finding exercise to establish why the County Government has not been collecting waste along and around Ngong River and Embakasi-Soweto Bridge since the beginning of the year.
“The committee has been informed that collection of solid waste in the entire city has been a continuous exercise; unfortunately the available trucks are not enough to deal with piled garbage around the city,” reads the report.
The collection of solid waste is done by a Nairobi City County owned fleet, hired contractors and private service providers.
However, the committee observed that the performance of all sectors has remarkably gone down leading to the accumulation of uncollected waste.
“For the contractors hired by Nairobi City County, poor performance is largely attributed to delays in payment for works done. For the private service providers, the Community Based Organizations (CBOs) have persistently posed a challenge whereas they try to avoid delivery of waste to Dandora and instead dump the waste in undesignated places to reduce the cost of their operations,” read the report.
According to the Chief Officer Environment Isaac Muraya, 15 of those trucks have been completely grounded while the rest are always on and off.
Muraya said markets and the CBD have been prioritised for clean-up by the few available vehicles until more trucks are procured.
The report further indicated that fuelling has also compromised optimal utilisation of the available trucks.
Recently the trucks were devolved to the sub-county level with each unit being allocated 2 trucks but in view of the occasional breakdowns without commensurate recovery, the trucks are not adequate.
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