Harare residents eating ‘re-cycled’ garbage

A health time bomb looms in Harare and dormitory towns amid revelations that council workers from various supermarkets, fast food outlets and chicken breeding firms, are re-changing EXPIRED products back to the market using Garbage trucks.

City of Harare’s Waste Management workers and security are working in cahoots with some workers from firms dealing with perishable goods to put expired stuff on the market. Condemned meat products meant for the Pomona dumpsite are being packed neatly and then loaded into the City of Harare garbage trucks.

These condemned meat products are then taken back to the market and sold to selected clientele outside the City of Harare’s Graniteside premises. Business is conducted DAILY between 3pm and 8pm.

Meanwhile, entry into the Pomona dumpsite is so tight one can mistake it for an army barracks. This is because the council workers want to keep their dirty business out of the public eye.

The scary revelation also involves restaurants which then buy meat such as sausages, pork, beef and chicken from outside Harare waste management premises in Graniteside industrial area.

That the perishables are sold right at the gate of waste management premises helps to suggest that council bigwigs should be involved in the shenanigans.

The delicacies, including sausages and meat pies, are being sold in Mbare among other surrounding areas, putting the lives of many low income earners surviving from buying the cheap meat at risk. Some of the meat is also understood to be sold at public events like soccer matches and music shows.

Another ready market for the condemned meat are the crowded beer outlets. It also emerged that the vendors and fast food outlets tend to sell these meat products at give away prices.

H-Metro tracked down the trucks while they were offloading the condemned meat products at the Graniteside base where there is a ready maket, with female vendors in waiting. The meat included sausages, chickens and some pies.

The meat can be bought at a price as low as US$2 per sack. “chero mukauya nepondo munowana nyama iri nani,” said one of the women. Last Friday an H-Metro undercover crew witnessed a city council Isuzu truck HM 009 (Reg AAE 5763) offloading some sacks of the condemned meat between 4 and 5pm.

After the transactions, five female buyers hired a green Mazda double cab truck (Reg ABM 6723) and loaded it with the fully packed sacks and H-Metro managed to track the vehicle to Mbare National where the sacks were offloaded.

Asked where they will sell the meat, one of the women said they take the meat to Marondera while the other one said she plies her trade in Mabvuku. Some taxis were also hired for transport during the process.

According to the information this publication is in possession of, the condemned meat products are taken to the municipal dumpsite by different food and meat companies including Irvines, Koala, Crest breeders, Chicken Slice, Colcom and many more.

“The meat is taken by these companies to Pomona and there are some touts who will then prepare the meat before bringing them to their buyers. The customers are advised to come and buy at the department after the trucks would have carried them from the dumpsite,” said a source.

However, part of the syndicate in the illegal trade has knowledge of the consequences of their actions.

“Pane majeri apa mdara. Ukabatwa unezvinhu izvi haubude. Vakadzi ava vane nguva vachiita izvi. Vachengeta mhuri nazvo musavadaro,” pleaded one of the guys who loaded the vendors’ vehicles. The undercover crew talked to one of the buyers who seemed uneasy and was jittery.

“Haaa zvingori zvinhuwo zvatinongotengawo. Ko muri kudei pano mukwasha makambondisunga ka imi,” she said.

The source added: “Those ladies are the ones with some food outlets. They buy the food, cook it and resell it to the public.”

However efforts to buy the exhibits were fruitless as the crew was deemed ‘late’. In suspicion, the syndicate changed the arrangements and delayed to conduct their business by Saturday evening. By 6pm on Saturday, the women and their taxis were milling around the council premises.

The crew visited the source of the meat in Pomona dumpsite where it is said one Manhuna is at the centre of processing the deal. But there was no chance of entering the hub of the activities.

In recent months the city of Harare’s health department has been battling for clues with regards to the source of TYPHOD and CHOLERA and this has resulted in the closures of open braaiing points like KwaMereki. Also condemned were boreholes in some of the city’s high density areas.

Only if the City of Harare’s Health Department had checked with their counterparts in Waste Management, research would not have been time consuming or costly. H Metro