A garbage crisis is in the offing in Siaya County following a stalemate in securing land to be used as a dumping site.
According to Siaya Town Member of County Assembly (MCA) James Obiero Otare, the residents have been incited not to sell land to the county government.
“I saw the dumpsite issue being revisited in the CIDP public participation where the residents were proposing for the establishment of it yet we had procured land at Nyangoma Kogello. Now the county government may lose the resources used to acquire it.
"It is extremely difficult for us to use it now that NEMA had issued a notice to us not to use the land,” Otare said.
The crisis to establish a dumpsite in counties has been compounded by the fact that the constitution requires public participation in such matters, hence most counties have found themselves helpless, following stiff resistance from residents to the establishment of dumpsites in their neighborhood.
“It is the reason why we want the National Land Commission to come to our aid or else counties will have a major problem in future,” he added.
Dumping site land
Many of the defunct town and municipal councils, whose assets were inherited by the counties after the change of the constitution, did not set aside land for either expansion of the current dumpsites or for new ones.
Most of the collected garbage ends up at the temporary sites.
The residents of Siaya also proposed the need to recycle the waste.
Otare also lauded the efforts by ex-Governor Cornel Rasanga’s administration saying it had solved the garbage menace in the county.
“Initially, waste management in the market was a nightmare. However, the county government had provided garbage bins which were being emptied regularly,” he said.
