Bulawayo’s once-proud image as Zimbabwe’s “City of Kings and Queens” is today being steadily buried under piles of uncollected refuse, as residents openly accuse the City Council and its councillors of abandoning their most basic responsibility, keeping the city clean.
Across high-density suburbs and even parts of the central business district, refuse bins overflow for weeks without collection, streets are littered with rotting waste, and open dumping has become the new normal. What should be a routine municipal service has degenerated into a public health emergency in slow motion, driven not by lack of awareness but by institutional failure.
Residents say the problem is no longer about resources alone, but about leadership that has grown comfortable with excuses while the city decays. “We elect councillors to serve us, not to give us explanations while garbage piles up,” said one resident from Mpopoma. “If refuse collection is failing, then what exactly are they in office for?”
Health experts warn that the persistent waste crisis exposes Bulawayo to outbreaks of cholera, typhoid and other preventable diseases, especially during the rainy season when stagnant water mixes with decomposing waste. Yet the City Council’s response has remained largely cosmetic — sporadic clean-up campaigns that vanish as quickly as they appear.
In line with Vision 2030’s emphasis on modern, clean and sustainable urban development, residents are now openly calling for national government intervention, arguing that the City Council has demonstrated its incapacity to manage waste effectively. Some have gone further, urging the expansion of Geo Pomona Waste Management (Pvt) Ltd’s model beyond Harare to Bulawayo, seeing private-sector involvement as a necessary shock to a paralysed municipal system.
But even this proposal raises uncomfortable questions for Bulawayo’s councillors: why must an external solution be imported for a problem that falls squarely within their mandate? Why has the council failed to innovate, partner, or even admit the depth of its collapse in waste management?
The silence and slow responses from councillors have only deepened public anger. Critics argue that Bulawayo’s leadership appears more invested in political positioning than in restoring dignity to basic service delivery. For a city that prides itself on discipline and order, the current state of filth is not just embarrassing — it is a betrayal of civic trust.
If Vision 2030 is to mean anything for ordinary residents, then clean streets, regular refuse collection and accountable local leadership must stop being aspirational slogans and start becoming daily realities. Until then, Bulawayo’s waste crisis will remain a stark symbol of a City Council that has lost control, and a citizenry that is rapidly losing patience.
