Grand plan to return the sunshine status to Harare

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Imagine this: A Harare that has streets so clean that litter is seen as a taboo, a city that is so orderly and peaceful that families can — without fear of any vagabonds — admire the architecture while sitting on pavement benches.

Imagine this: A Harare that has streets so clean that litter is seen as a taboo, a city that is so orderly and peaceful that families can — without fear of any vagabonds — admire the architecture while sitting on pavement benches.

TAPIWA ZIVIRA

litter

Yes, a Harare with air so fresh, and an environment so friendly that it is refreshing and easygoing to spend time gallivanting down its pavements or driving around its streets — be it for leisure or business.

This may seem like a dream, given the current chaotic state of the city, where commuter omnibuses have literally taken over the roads, while vendors — pushed by the deepening crisis — use the pavements to display their various goods.

Described as one of the filthiest cities in southern Africa, Harare — once known as the sunshine city — has become a litter bed, where mountains of uncollected refuse are found on every street corner. Stinking, poorly maintained toilets overpower the fresh air in their environs.

The afternoon chaos — which in its measure is grave — escalates at night when municipal police knock off at dusk. In the absence of any policing and law enforcement agents, vendors and commuter omnibuses besiege major streets — with vendors selling wares from fruits to snacks and kombi operators soliciting for passengers at almost every street corner in downtown Harare.

For many road users, Harare city centre becomes a nightmare to navigate through.

While this gloomy picture of Harare may seem eternal, a group of individuals have come up with an ambitious plan to return the capital to its glory days.

Spearheading the transformation is the Harare Central Business District Development Association (HCBDDA), chaired by Karen Mutasa.

It is the rapid decay of Harare’s central business district that led to the formation of the HCBDDA.

“The uncontrolled presence of vendors, illegal public transport, lack of waste management infrastructure and unacceptable noise levels from shops drove the formation of the association, ” said Mutasa in an exclusive interview with The Standard.

According to the HCBDDA’s vision, the key is to involve everyone — building owners, businesspeople, ordinary citizens, commuter operators, the police, government and the city authorities — in a way that ensures each of them plays their part in ensuring Harare is safe, orderly and clean.

While the primary members of the HCBDDA are property owners, whose property values are likely to be impacted by deteriorating conditions of the CBD, the organisation has several initiatives lined up, that include instilling a culture of responsibility among everyone who uses the CBD.

Harare is not alone in this.

Braamfontein in Johannesburg, South Africa was over a decade ago, an epitome of urban decay, causing an exodus of corporate and tertiary institutions.

But after years of transformation, Braamfontein has emerged from being a rundown business district to what southafrica.net describes as “a revamped Soho style neighbourhood with chic hotels, art galleries, trendy bars, clubs and restaurants.”

To add to the colour, several buildings in Braamfontein are adorned with artwork, and bright colours, while the pavements have been revamped to make it one of the smartest downtown parts of the city.

Also not far from home, Botswana’s capital Gaborone has developed a culture of cleanliness and the public takes the responsibility to reprimand litter bugs in such a way that if one drops litter from a commuter omnibus, they are immediately asked to get off that bus.

Far from home, an example that HCBDDA seeks to take is that of Rwandan capital, Kigali, which has been widely viewed in negative terms over the 1994 genocide that took place in the East African country.

Over decades, Kigali, has however changed to be named among the cleanest and most orderly cities in Africa, with well-travelled Mail and Guardian Africa blogger Christine Mungai describing it as, “immaculate, almost gleaming.” “The streets are well-lit, and police on patrol hang out of refurbished pick-ups, facing outwards on two benches, about five-a-side and guns in hand.

“It’s an intimidating, yet oddly reassuring sight — you know that you will not have to deal with opportunistic petty crime. There is order and discipline on the roads too….” writes Mungai.

With the positive and professional involvement of national and municipal police in the enforcement of order, Mutasa hopes that the unruly commuter crews and pirate taxis that are a menace on the roads will be reined in.

“[On] public transport system, we have noted that there are small things that can be done to improve public transport in the CBD. We will work together with other associations, [Harare] City Council and ZRP on this.”

Sadly, both national and municipal police often raid and engage in high speed chases with commuter crews, strategies that have been dismissed as ineffective as it has resulted in more chaos.

To add to the problem, the police are often accused of being corrupt and unprofessional during the discharge of their duties.

These accusations have been repeatedly denied by both the municipal police and Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP).

Apart from these ineffective enforcement methods, the situation has been made worse by the unavailability of adequate holding facilities for commuter omnibuses, which end up clogging the city’s few terminuses.

Harare has attempted to construct a holding bay along Rotten Row Street, just outside the CBD, but the facility — which looks half complete — has remained largely unused.

Most of the city’s termini were built in the colonial era, when Harare — which now has over four million people — had a population of less than a million.

There are reports of plans to refurbish both the Market Square, and Fourth Street bus termini, although these projects are still pipe dreams.

Apart from the traffic chaos, Harare’s litter levels remain one of the reasons the capital city is ranked among the filthiest in the world.

Mutasa pointed to the litter bugs, who she said needed awareness lessons and stricter enforcement of punishment on those throwing litter at undesignated places.

“We would like to focus mainly on awareness programmes. We hope the recent move to fine litter bugs will be enforced and we will be talking to the city council on how this is progressing,” she said.

A recent survey by the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), ZRP and council revealed that the city was sitting on a health time bomb, as its CBD only has 173 litter bins against a minimum requirement of 862.

The survey shows the dire situation also affected busy areas such as Leopold Takawira Street, which only has two bins instead of 69 and Robert Mugabe Way, which has 20 instead of 115 bins.

So, while building a culture of responsibility among citizens is one of the goals, there must also be simultaneous efforts by the city authorities in partnerships with the corporates to provide adequate waste disposal facilities.

A walk in the city centre showed that while bins were available in some parts of the city, they were often full, leaving one to walk a long distance while looking for a place to dump litter.

“Findings from the survey established that only 13 bins were available along Chinhoyi Street against the recommended 99. “It was also noted that some of the bins were vandalised, while vending sites had most litter comprising of plastic and paper waste,” said EMA’s manager for Harare Metropolitan province, Benson Basera.

In line with HCBDDA’s vision, Harare City engineer, Calvin Chigariro appealed to the corporate sector to assist in waste management to ensure that the city retains its sunshine city status.

“We call on anyone who wants to donate bins, especially in their respective areas of operation, to approach our offices for the design and modalities of how they can put up the bins,” he said.

Chigariro told our sister paper, NewsDay, that council was in the process of enacting legislation, which required that any company that seeks a permit to operate in Harare would have to submit a waste management strategy as a prerequisite to get a licence.

With sincere efforts by all concerned, Harare may as well be on its way back to the sunshine city days, but it will be a long road.