Africa-Press – Botswana. Lobatse Town Council (LTC) has promised to intensify refuse collection and implement other strategies of making the town clean.
This was said by the Mayor of Lobatse Mr Mosimanegape Dithebe when officially launching the Lobatse Upkeep and Green City Initiative at Peleng Kgotla on Friday.
He said Lobatse used to be the cleanest town in Botswana and one of the cleanest towns in Africa alongside Nairobi (Kenya), Kigali (Rwanda) and Windhoek (Namibia).
“Lobatse used to be counted amongst the cleanest town in Africa.
I don’t know what went wrong along the way. However, we need to go back to the crossroads where we lost our way and reclaim our status of being one of the cleanest places,” he said.
He said the town was blessed with beautiful mountains terrain and heritage sites, which deserved to be kept in a clean state and preserved.
The mayor said just like Pillar 3 of the national Vision 2036 focused on environmental sustainability, it was important for authorities and members of the community in Lobatse to protect their environment by keeping the town clean.
The event was held under the theme: Environmental Cleanliness My Responsibility # A Re Chencheng.
“This theme calls on all of us to be responsible and keep our environment clean,” he said.
Mr Dithebe said though LTC had shortage of resources it would do everything required to make the town clean at all times.
He said LTC had established a strategic partnership with the European Union to protect the environment through green energy and waste recycling initiatives.
LTC Environment and Health Committee chairperson Mr Ontiretse Mosimanewamacha, who is also Peleng East councillor, said Lobatse used to win national awards for environment cleanliness.
He expressed concern that the town was dirty nowadays with waste dumped in open spaces and along the roads.
“Our environment is not clean anymore. There are people who dump waste everywhere in our town. We have realised that people dump waste in the open spaces,” he said.
However, he warned that stern action would be taken against those people since that practice amounted to contravention of the Waste Management Act.
Mr Mosimanewamacha further said the council would dispatch Green Scorpions workers to educate the public about proper handling and disposal of waste.
He further said many pit latrines in Lobatse were overflowing and not in good conditions, which contributed to making the town’s environment dirty.
To address the challenge, he said LTC had decided to discontinue building of the pit latrines.
He said no permission would be granted for building of new pit latrines in the town.
Mr Mosimanewamacha also informed residents that the council struggled to collect waste from households twice a week due to poor condition of its refuse collection trucks.
He said council would address the situation and start collecting waste on time.
Mr Mosimanewamacha said council would put waste disposal skips in selected locations, adding that council was in the process of outsourcing waste collection in SHHA areas.
The council’s chief environmental officer Mr Desmond Tshotelo said in response to the government concern that many villages, towns and cities in the country were untidy, the LTC leadership developed initiatives of making the town clean.
He said they intended to have transformed the environment of Lobatse in a period of three months through the Lobatse Upkeep and Green City initiative.
He said through the initiative, they would ensure waste was collected from households regularly and the council would conduct litter picking.
He added that they would undertake a de bushing and grass cutting exercise, de-silting of culverts and trenches, and collection of garden waste as short term initiatives.
“The long term measures include monthly clean up campaigns, quarterly multi-sectoral clean up campaigns, and public education on environmental cleanliness,” he said.
In her welcome remarks, Peleng Customary Court president Ms Tebogo Kemoabe urged residents to desist from dumping waste everywhere.
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