Garbage beside residential housing structures are common

In countries where waste is not wasted, tonnes of energy are generated for use in hospitals and laboratories for warming, and in kitchens where it replaces the conventional cooking gas. A significant proportion of cheap energy can be available for such uses if the tons of waste and garbage produced by Douala households were to be recycled, or simply transformed. Yet, waste continues to be a source of public health concerns in the economic capital. Of the 1200 tonnes of waste said to be collected daily, a lethal 400 tonnes are still uncollected and they have for some time now burden Douala through largest known outbreaks such as plague, cholera, typhoid fever or diarrhea, 50 years after independence. As a result, slum neighbourhoods are fountains for the human and economic loss that has waved across the city.

It was little known that communal character could influence an entire city population to such an extent. The recent cholera outbreak proved that personal behavior vis-à-vis food should not only be the cause for public health concerns but that a community may equally be informed of the good it does – first to itself, then the general public – when its wastes are properly disposed or simply assembled in places accessible to collection by the Hygiene and Sanitation Company, HYSCAM.

Unsafe characteristics of city life, including; the slum habitation of Mabanda (Bonaberi) and New Bell, the squatter colonies of the marshy Nylon, and the emptying of waste and garbage in unauthorized places (gutters, ditches, streams, water, sewage sometimes burnt in the open air polluting the atmosphere), according to Ecologists and Human Rights Promoter and President of the NGO, Organisation of Human Rights and Citizens’ Protection, Prince Kemajou Raoul Nasser, have laid their foundations in Douala. The situation is even more acute in neighborhoods like Bilongué, Madagascar, and Brazzaville (Nylon) coupled with the precarious living conditions and non-existence of a system of sewage disposal, as well as septic tanks. Douala once described by the NGO as “The cemetery of plastic waste” was in allusion to these neighbourhoods. The unhealthy piles of garbage found in Douala II and III council areas is, indeed, the source of the proliferation of flies and mosquitoes that first contact with excreta, then contaminate food. During the rainy season, the various wastes are carried to the wells and unprotected sources of drinking water by runoff from rainfall. The same applies to the flow of waste from leaking sewers.

An official of HYSACAM said, more than 1500 tonnes of waste (excluding industrial waste) is produced everyday in Douala, of which just 1200 tonnes are collected and properly disposed of. “At least 400 tonnes is left uncollected because of inaccessibility of some quarters by our close to 100 garbage pick-up trucks and 1100 employees.” Prince Kemajou Raoul Nasser refutes the figures: “From statistical and demographic survey, garbage collection covers only 40%, meaning that 750,000 tonnes of waste are collected per year of the 2 million tonnes produced annually – not including industrial waste. At least 45 million kg is produced per month. Each citizen produces on average 500 grams of organic liquid waste per day. Still millions of tonnes have not been collected for years now, meaning that efforts and capacities ought to be doubled to meet the real needs of waste collection in the city.”

Faced with this inadequacy, pre-garbage collection and drainage of wastewater should be built up in slum neighborhoods. The poor must not remain passive. They must often deal with their problems.

AUTHOR: Shout Africa
URL: http://www.shout-africa.com
E-MAIL: news [at] shout-africa.com

The walls of Owino market are part of Kisenyi slum and kaffumbe Mukasa road divides Owino market and Kisenyi, this road is very poor and with pot holes which contain contaminated water harbouring misquotes, people , “boda-boda”, and vehicles just swim through it .

Around the walls of the market is where you find vendors trading so many kinds of fresh or perishable commodities like tomatoes, cabbages and so many others.

Musisi Agnes , a market vendor at Owino, when asked about the situation in the place, said , ” the government and city council has neglected this commercial place , they don’t know that this is where all people in Uganda come for business, it is a shame for the country’s largest market to look like this.”

Agnes added, “the major problem is that the authorities have neglected the roads around the market and in Kisenyi slum, they should find quick means of working on these roads”.

Life in Kampala slums

“Congestion is unavoidable in Kampala slums; shanty houses are too many and extremely close to one another and most of these houses are rented out to people. Many people can afford renting only a room.

The father, mother and children may occupy a room, which may also serve as the dinning, storeroom, bedroom, among other functions. Due to the large numbers in the room, some families force some of their children to sleep under the parents bed yet in more descent homes, a simple curtain separates the “master bedroom” from the children’s, which also doubles as a dining room”, said Nsubuga Simon a resident in Kisenya slum.

Food prices have spiralled out of control in 2011 which even caused the opposition parties to form protests, Most people living in slums live on even less one meal a day ,Sickness hovers like a ghost over the slums and pregnant women, children, the elderly suffer the most.

Due to the close proximity of the houses to each other malaria spreading mosquitoes have a field day – malaria strikes and often there is no money for treatment.

In these slums, overflowing pit latrine empties its contents into a worm-infested drainage channel and at least less than 10 latrines serve a population of 3,000 people living there.

Developments in slums

In Kisenyi , there is only one large commercial building which has the standard of city structures but unfortunately some of these shops for renting are still closed, people in this area can’t manage to rent them since they deal in small scale businesses, just a few are occupied by large scale businesses like banks etc.

Apart from Kisenyi slum, however, Tax parks near this slum are also in a very poor condition, recently, Kampala Capital City Authority Executive Director, Jennifer Semakula, described the two main city taxi parks as regretful, calling for their immediate reconstruction and not mere repairs.

She said KCCA will review plans to repair the new and old parks in the central business district to lift it to the required standards.

“I have observed that the parks are beyond repair, deserve immediate attention and therefore the Authority will soon sit to revise the decision taken earlier,” Ms Musisi said, during her tour of the two city taxi parks last week.

“The parks are not different from roads in down town areas that also need urgent attention,” she said.

She was, however, quick to add that the reconstruction is not an immediate issue because it involves going through stages of procurement.

Kampala is both the administrative and commercial capital city of Uganda situated on about 24 low hills that are surrounded by wetland valleys, characterized by an imprint of scattered unplanned settlements.

The emergency of slums in Kampala City has been gradual and sustained over a long period of time which has attributed to the failure of Kampala Structure Plans to cater for the growth and developments.

AUTHOR: Nangayi Guyson
URL: http://lifeyouthministry.yolasite.com
E-MAIL: n.guyson [at] yahoo.com