Harare Mayor, Jacob Mafume is frustrating the Pomona waste management project, project Chairman, Dilesh Nguwaya has said.
Nguwaya said this during a media tour at the Pomona dumpsite yesterday.
Addressing journalists, the corruption tainted Nguwaya insisted that when Mafume returned to office, he influenced Harare City councilors to renege on the agreement.
“There is no problem, but when we did the contract, there was a mayor who was not around, so he is saying everything we did before him is not correct, so he wants to start the contract.
“So the problem is Mafume, because we did the contract with the same councilors when he was absent, and they approved the deal, but they are the same who are now saying they want to cancel the contract,” he said.
Nguwaya went on to add that what Mafume is doing will affect investors appetite in the future, saying that a hostile environment is not suitable for business.
“The grievances affected investors, especially if you are coming from another country to do the business.
“It’s not good when we start the project and someone says we can stop.
“We are saying Zimbabwe is open for businesses, who want to come and invest in such kind of an environment,” he added.
The contentious deal between Harare City Council and Geogenix BV is said to be a Build Operate Transfer arrangement.
The contract stipulates that Harare City Council will pay US$40 per tonne of waste delivered to Geogenix BV.
The stipulated daily delivery is at least 550 tonnes or a minimum of 200 750 tonnes per year – translating to US$8.03 million for the company in the first year.
By the second year, the daily tonnage will rise to 650; going up to 750 in the third year; 850 in the fourth year and 1,000 tonnes per day at the start of the fifth year.
This means that the City of Harare will pay Geogenix BV a minimum of US$14.6 million annually starting in 2027 until 2052.
The contentious deal has come under heavy criticism from members of the public and there have been growing calls to have it reversed. The agreement was made between Geogenix BV and the MDC T led city council, with the government coming in as the guarantor of the deal.
Newly elected CCC councillors immediately made it their task to reverse the deal and had several resolutions to that effect, but the resolutions are continuously vetoed by the Minister Of Local Government July Moyo.
Geogenix BV Chairman Delish Nguwaya has been plagued by allegations of corruption. He was arrested in 2020 for corruption involving USD$60m Covid PPE deal that resulted in the arrest and subsequent firing on the then Health Minister Dr Obadiah Moyo.
