Keep Kabul Clean

Garbage is piling up in the capital, and much to the frustration of residents, there are no signs of it being cleared.

Everyone’s complaining about the stench from rotting waste in overflowing dumps and skips.

Garbage is piling up in the capital, and much to the frustration of residents, there are no signs of it being cleared.

Everyone’s complaining about the stench from rotting waste in overflowing dumps and skips. Ghairat who lives in the 5th District says, “The stink is bothering people. Kabul Municipality’s sanitation department is doing nothing.”

Officials say the garbage is cleared every week, and it is people who are to blame for throwing household waste wherever they please.

But Ghairat is adamant that people put their garbage mostly in places allocated for it. “My shop is located in front of a skip in the 5th District. It has not been cleared for the last two weeks whatever the officials may say about taking away the garbage once every week,” he says.

Residents of 6th District worry their children could fall sick from living in such proximity to uncleared piles of rubbish. “I am sick of the smell,” he adds. “What can I do? I live here, and also have a shop where I work. There is so much garbage that just a slight breeze is enough to have plastic bags swirling on the road. I feel ashamed about how we live.”

Shopkeeper Ahmad Sayer in Karte Seh, Kabul, says shop owners in his neighbourbood can hardly sit outside their shops because of the terrible smell and also the swarms of flies and mosquitoes that breed in the filth. “There is a lot of garbage,” he says. “It has affected our work.”

Sanitation department workers in Karte Seh say they are not at fault. They blame the municipality for not giving enough fuel for trucks to make regular trips to collect garbage.

Nader, a sanitation department employee says, “For the last two months, drivers have collected garbage from one or two skips, and the rest stays where it is. The fuel we get has decreased for the last two months. The government is not giving it to us.”

Bad management

Kabul Municipality, in turn, points fingers at the National Procurement Commission and cuts in its budget. The fact that the fuel contract was not approved is the biggest reason for garbage remaining on the streets, officials say.

Abdul Wahed Ahad, acting mayor of Kabul spoke on Oct 3 about a 21 percent decrease in the revenues of the municipality. Earnings have gone down because of the poor security situation and the continuing slowdown of the economy, Ahad said.

Meanwhile, the municipality’s sanitation department has been waiting for three months for the contract for fuel to be approved by the National Procurement Commission. Nesar Ahmad Habibi Ghori, head of the department says, “We have the money but the contract has not been approved. We are facing a serious problem.”

The sanitation department has a fleet of garbage trucks and staff. “Our trucks did not get fuel for a month and a half before Eid al-Adha. We got barely 3,000 to 4,000 litres when our needs are many times more,” he adds.

The department has resorted to buying fuel from the market, which, according to Ghori, has been of “poor quality” and the engines of some trucks have stopped working as a result.

“Twenty five vehicles have got faulty because of poor quality that is being supplied in Kabul bazaars. Our services have been (further) affected,” says the sanitation department head.

Monitor the staff

Information provided by Kabul Municipality puts the figure of waste generated daily in the capital city at 5,000 to 6,000 tonnes. According to Ghori, the sanitation department needs many more trucks and staff to keep Kabul clean. Staff also needs to be closely monitored to stop the practice of fuel pilferage and shirking work.

“We had some 480 vehicles 40 years back when the population was 300,000-500,000. Now we have 290 vehicles for six million people. Also, the trucks are very old,” he told Killid.

Moreover, allegations of corruption dog the municipality. Erstwhile employees accuse the present cadre of rampant corruption and inefficiency. The management of the municipality should be handed over to a team of professionals and only then will residents of Kabul see a positive change in service delivery, say former employees like Fazel Ahmad Ferotan who was legal adviser.

The municipality’s earnings were also low in the past but services like garbage collection were never affected to this extent, he claims.

Lawyer Ferotan accuses municipality officials of “trying to get big contracts” where the under-the-table commissions are larger and directly benefit the corrupt. For instance, thousands of small shop owners have not been issued “work permits” because their premises are next to residential areas. However, the rule, which should apply to polluting businesses and not to small shops, has cut off a potential source of revenue for the municipality.

“Shops are next to houses in 70 percent of Kabul, and would give revenue to the municipality. But the staff are busy cutting deals to put money in their own pockets,” says Ferotan.