Moyo rotting away

By Stephen Ssenkaaba and Richard Drasimaku
trueIn the Make Uganda Clean campaign, Vision Group is profiling major urban centres in the country, highlighting their sanitation situation, with a view to recognising the cleanest towns at the end of November. Today, we bring you profiles of Moyo and Palisa towns

Moyo town is one of those urban centres that never go to sleep. Day and night, the town is awake, perhaps because it lies at crossroads; connecting Arua, Koboko, Yumbe and Adjumani.

Moyo is a hub of activities, and yet, for all the travels and trade going on, there seems to be no order.
A recent Vision Group survey revealed that the town is on its wane. While all respondents reported the existence of cleaning schedules for the town, they were dissatisfied with the state of the markets, streets/roads and waste bins.

All respondents observed that dustbins in the town were insufficient. Fourty-six percent of the respondents have seen someone litter the town council in the past three months while 55% felt the town is polluted.
Moyo town had a garbage dumping ground at Era hills, 3km from the town. However, the people living around this place asked the town authorities to stop dumping rubbish near their homes due to the stench.

The town council also had a tractor used to collect garbage, but this is now dysfunctional. The council then resorted to using wheelbarrow pushers and sweepers to collect garbage and dump it near the abattoir in Gaagaa cell where it is periodically burnt.The town is littered with rotten and leaking garbage bins. Despite this, the residents continue to pour rubbish inside these bins.

Poor drainage is also a big problem and because of the absence of a central sewer age system, the owners of the commercial and residential buildings connect their sewerage lines to that of Moyo Hospital. This has put a lot of pressure on the 50-year-old hospital drainage system.

In July, the sewerage line burst at a manhole, spewing a thick stew of effluent into people’s thenewvisionhomes. It took a month to have it repaired. And yet this is not the only breakage here. This town has numerous broken and poorly maintained drainage channels. The town officials say attempts to open new drainage channels were opposed by the residents.
“When you open a drainage channel, you invite war. People always block channels because they do not want drainage to pass through their areas,” the assistant town clerk, Walter Draciri, laments.

Pit latrines here are in a sorry state and might soon collapse as it continues to rain. Indeed, 73% of the respondents in the survey said public toilets in this town were dirty. On average, it costs sh178 to use the latrines.
The town is also grappling with water shortage. The pump station that was established in 1968 to supply 500 people is now serving a population of 30,000.

Even the boreholes that some people use are not reliable. Recently the Government constructed a gravity flow water scheme to supply 670 households. The scheme only yields 150m3 of water daily which is far below the 900m3 demand for water. Draciri says the central Government, through the water and sanitation facility grant, is designing piped water system for Moyo.

Good practices: Build a compost plant

trueDespite all this mess, the town council is using its meagre resources to support various sanitation projects. This year, the council has allocated sh58m, about 7.5% of its total budget of sh771m towards health and sanitation.
The town council has purchased a piece of land in Bareko village, about 5km from Moyo sub county for a new dumping site.

According to Draciri, the town council plans to procure petroleum drums which will be used as garbage skips.
An environmental impact assessment has been conducted to establish the feasibility of developing a compost plant. “The mini-compost plant will be used to turn garbage into manure and bio-gas,” says the town council speaker, Emmanuel Amoko.

Plans are underway to refurbish the tractor next year after the construction of a compost plant.
A company has already been contracted to conduct a feasibility study on safe water generation in the town. There is hope that Moyo town will get safe water soon.

ASS. TOWN CLERK’S VIEW

•   Walter Draciri says the council had installed 40 garbage bins at strategic locations throughout the town. But only five of these are usable because people burn rubbish in most of them, destroying the bins.

PALIISA TOWN

Pallisa putting the meagre resources to proper use

By Stephen Ssenkaaba and George Bita
Like most towns in eastern Uganda, Pallisa was created in the 1930s following the settlement of Asian traders there. Records show that it was a distribution and collection centre for cotton by Asian traders, before becoming a fully-fledged trading centre in 1957.

According to Nicholas Ogwang, the town clerk, Pallisa was upgraded from a town board to a council in 1994. “Unfortunately, many of the dwellers are still living like villagers; they have to come to terms with the town’s contemporary status,” he laments.

Ogwang explains that the town has over 42,000 people with a sizeable number raring animals despite persistent caution from council against the practice. “We have often impounded the animals especially goats, but the owners often refuse to collect their animals until we set them free.

That explains the influx of loitering animals in the town,” he narrates. John Okia, the health inspector, adds that each impounded goat attracts a fine of sh5,000, but in most instances nobody claims the impounded animals. “As council, the only option is to set the goats free because we have nowhere to keep them,” Okia observes. But this is only the tip of the iceberg that the town is.

According to a Vision Group survey, this town is collapsing under the weight of uncollected rubbish, smelly toilets and broken sewers. In the survey carried out from August to September this year, residents are dissatisfied with the state of cleanliness in the town. Asked about the presence of dustbins in their town, only 10% of the respondents claimed to have seen any dustbins in Pallisa town.

Where they exist, dustbins were found to be insufficient and dirty. Ninetyseven percent of the respondents said it was not easy to find a dustbin in the town. Twenty-three percent of the respondents have ever seen someone litter the town in the past three months and 67% said the town is polluted.

Despite the filth, there have been efforts by local leaders to clean up the town. “Council contracted a firm to collect trash off the streets. Earlier on we had been doing it as council, but we had to adhere to public service guidelines,” Ogwang says. A whole 63% of the respondents said public toilets were dirty. It costs on average sh127 to use a public toilet, but with the high level of poverty, many people cannot afford this fee.

This leaves them with no option, but to run to the bush or use polythene bags whenever nature calls. Used polythene bags are everywhere in this town. Patrick Okiring, the mayor, says that this filth has made the town untidy. “This is the most commonly used wrapping material or carrier bag which users simply dump anywhere after use,” he says. Absence of sufficient funds has made life all the more difficult for the leaders.

Ogwang says that out of the entire council’s sh644m, sh47m has been set aside this financial year for primary healthcare and sanitation. The mayor expresses his disappointment with central Government fund remittances which are not reliable. “Out of the sh644m budgeted for this financial year, we expect sh504m from Government although it is usually sent late. We have not received the lump-sum as of now,” Okiring says.

Human waste is managed through the pit latrines. This is because the town lacks a sewer system. Pallisa has one town planner, one health inspector, an engineer, one lands officer, an education officer and one environmental

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Pallisa main street. Photos by George Bita

GOOD PRACTICES
Rubbish is collected daily
According to Ogwang, the town council collects garbage from designated points twice or thrice a day using a tipper lorry and tractor. “Most times we use a trailer attached to a tractor. We have two tractors, but one of them is presently out of use,” he says.

Ogwang says that council intends to carry out on-spot sensitisation to inculcate a sense of duty to clean their town. “We hope to revive the monthly Keep- Pallisa-Clean campaign. Partners like Red Cross have already assured us of their support,” he adds. We will set up ‘No Dumping’ signposts complete with fines to penalise would-be offenders. “Owners of bushy undeveloped plots in town will be forced to pay for the clearing of their sites,” Ogwang warned

Highlights

TOILETS

According to Ogwang, Pallisa town council has only four public latrines. One of them located behind the council offices. One latrine is used by 10,500 people daily

WATER

Access to water remains a big problem. Residents pay up to sh500 per 20-litre jerrycan of water accessed from boreholes. This is worse during the dry seasons.

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