Animal droppings decorate Manafwa town streets

By Stephen Ssenkaaba and Moses Nampala

In the Make Uganda Clean campaign, Vision Group is profiling major urban centres in the country, highlighting their sanitation situation, with a view to recognise the cleanest towns towards the end of November. Today, we bring you profiles of Manafwa and Kibaale towns

Few places would confuse one the way Manafwa town council does. A string of poorly constructed buildings looking old, dusty roads and heaps of garbage make up a great part of this town. Apart from the near perfect alignment of the structures here, this town needs an urgent overhaul.

Herds of animals walk through the streets with abandon; their droppings have now become the new decor that grace the Manafwa streets. Ahmed Nambogo, a trader, sounds concerned. “The other day a bull strayed from the herd and charged at me,” he explains.

“It is sad that up to now the town council has not addressed the problem of stray animals from loitering the town,” he regrets. The mayor Stephen Waneroba says that until two years ago when the town council passed a bylaw against loitering livestock, animals used to even go into town council offices. Regulations are now in place. “Owners of stray animals are liable to give up their animals to the town council authorities or pay a fine of sh50,000,” explains Waneroba.

A Vision Group survey on cleanliness in this town reveals that most residents in the town would like to see improvement in sanitation. All respondents said they had never seen dustbins in the town council, while 70% of the respondents had seen someone litter the town in the last three months. When asked what they had done to improve their environment, 33% of the respondents said they had done nothing.

There are no garbage skips around the town, but the council has put in place designated centres for dumping rubbish from where it is collected by the council support staff and taken to a national forest reserve as there is no official dumping site. However, National Forest Authority recently asked the Manafwa town council leaders to stop dumping garbage in the forest reserve.The council needs sh20m to buy a piece of land that would serve as the dumping site. But the funds are not readily available. All the respondents have not seen a sewerage burst, because there is no central sewer system in Manafwa town council.

Eighty-three percent of the respondents said they knew where the public toilets are in the town and most of them said they are clean. It costs sh115 to use a public toilet here and many residents make use of these facilities. On the other hand, 50% of the respondents said they had noticed grown grass in the town council and that the authorities were not doing enough to have it cleared.

Eight years since attaining town council status, Manafwa still does not have a physical plan. This has hampered further development in the town and discouraged would-be investors to set up shops there. Without a physical plan, revenue collection from property and ground rent is not possible. The town has no running water.

Instead residents rely on rivers and shallow wells as their source of water. Often these sources are contaminated, exposing people to dangerous waterborne diseases. In 2008, a cholera outbreak claimed the lives of five people.

MAYOR’S VIEWtrue

•  Stephen Waneroba says they have a bylaw to address the problem of loitering animals. Culprits are fineds h50,000 or they risk having their animals auctioned by the town council.

Good practices:
Recycling garbage
The town clerk, Paul Wamono, says the slow progress is partly because the town does not have enough funds for sanitation projects. Out of the total annual budget of sh540,712,382, the town council allocates sh15m (3%) for solid waste collection and management of public sanitary utilities.

In partnership with Amal municipality in Sweden, Manafwa urban authorities have undertaken a programme to recycle garbage. The town council is also constructing a multistoreyed complex, which will help improve the look of the town.