Gweru residents fear a Covid-19 explosion due to poor waste
disposal mechanisms amid reports that children are retrieving used face masks
and other items meant to protect against the novel coronavirus, from a dumpsite
close to Woodlands Park.
This comes in the wake of recent reports indicating that
informal traders could be recycling used coronavirus protection items for
resale in Harare and other parts of the country.
Woodlands Park was set up several years ago, a few metres
away from the already existing dumpsite, which has constantly drawn outcries
from residents, engineers and health experts.
Developed by River Valley Properties that is run by Gweru
businesswoman, Smelly Dube, Woodlands has about 5 000 households.
Last year, The Standard in conjunction with Information for
Development Trust, a non-profit making media organisation, conducted an in
depth investigation which revealed that the suburb was established too close to
the dumping site where used medical waste and rubbish from across Gweru are trashed.
Dube says Woodlands was handed over to the Gweru council in
2013 and the local authority is the one responsible for services in the area
because it is collecting rates from the beneficiaries of the project.
A quick survey showed that residents in Woodlands Park and
other parts of the city are being exposed to coronavirus infection due to the
dumpsite risk, overcrowding and the general failure to observe social
distancing.
To date, Gweru has not recorded a single positive Covid-19
case but at least 300 people are in self-isolation, health experts say, amid
concerns that the testing reach is still limited.
A number of scare cases at local health centres have been
experienced, with the latest being of a doctor from Wilkins Hospital in Harare,
who visited his family in Gweru for the weekend and displayed symptoms of the
disease.
He was briefly admitted at a Gweru private hospital,
causing panic among health workers at the institution, before being transferred
to Harare.
Obert Rupanga, the Woodlands Park suburb’s ward development
committee chairperson told The Standard that children stray into the dumpsite
and pick materials to play with.
“Actually, some children pick up used personal protective
equipment like face masks and gloves dumped from hospitals,” Rupanga said.
“They wear these when playing and take them to their homes.
We need help because we are at a great risk of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We have approached the Gweru City Council and they said
money to relocate the dumpsite is on this year’s budget but we are concerned
that, in the meantime, people may easily perish.”
It is possible that waste from homes occupied by those in
self-isolation is finding its way to the dumpsite, a popular playground for
children and hunting ground for informal traders specialising in waste
recycling, Rupanga added.
The Gweru municipality has been demolishing unapproved
structures at the popular Kudzanayi bus terminus and green market and dump the
rubbish at the Woodlands site, also raising fears that the virus could be on
the rubble.
There is no police outpost in Woodlands and the absence of
law enforcers results in residents defying the social distancing requirement,
according to Parirenyatwa Nyika, the ward 16 councillor for Vungu RDC under
whose jurisdiction Woodlands Park falls.
While Woodlands Park is administered by the Vungu council,
it receives services like water and sewer reticulation from Gweru. This
irregularity is making it difficult for vulnerable residents to receive ongoing
government aid meant to cushion citizens against the impact of the Covid-19
lockdown that commenced on March 30 and extended to May 17.
“At the social welfare ministry they say we are from a
rural area and so we cannot benefit from the government grant yet the suburb is
in Gweru,” Nyika said.
“I have had to battle to submit a list of people struggling
here due to the lockdown so that they get allowances promised to cushion those
affected by the lockdown mostly in the informal sector.”
Plans to relocate the dumpsite to a farm along Lower Gweru
was stalled after the ouster of former president Robert Mugabe in a coup in
2017.
Council reportedly wants to set up a new suburb known as
Mkoba 21 where the Woodlands dumpsite is located.
Chiundura constituency Member of Parliament, Livingston
Chimina said he was aware of the Covid-19 risk in Woodlands Park.
“I have been there to witness the challenges and I am going
to take the matter up with relevant authorities,” Chiundura said.
“There is too much hunger there so people are failing to
observe social distancing and are not staying at home as they have to earn a
living.” Standard
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