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Sanitation project taking shape

The Sanitation Service Level Agreement (SSLA) project which aims at improving the availability of public toilets in the City of Blantyre is now taking shape.

Wes-Waste

The WASTE facilitated SSLA project is co-funded by Blantyre City Council, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Department for International Development (DfID) of the British government.

“The objective of the project is to improve access to sanitation services across the unsewered areas of Blantyre City,” says Joseph DeGabriele, WASTE country director.

It focus on three areas of service delivery to improve the management of faecal sludge namely improved access to clean public toilets throughout the city, improved access to safe and efficient desludging of toilets in unsewered areas and improved access to faecal sludge treatment.

“As far as possible, these services have to be carried out under the partnership between BCC and the private sector. The role of BCC would be to ensure that the services are delivered to a good standard throughout the city while the private sector actually delivers the services,” says DeGabriele.

He adds; “For this to take place, there needs to be good contractual agreements that ensure quality service delivery and those investments by the private sector are encouraged and protected.”

Mayor Noel Chalamanda said the Council was grateful to have received such a prestigious grant worth such amount from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Mayor appealed to different stakeholders including residents and the business community to come forward to participate through investments.

Said Chalamanda; “It is our hope that the implementation of this project, which will increase sanitation facilities, will help all of us to change our attitudes and mindsets especially when it comes to use and protection of public facilities.”

At the moment, the project implementers are working on calling for expression of interest to solicit applications from qualified private sector operators interested in investing and managing public toilets within Blantyre City.

It is expected that under the $2,638,272 (about K1.1 billion) three-year project, rehabilitation and construction works will be one and the city will end up having at least 100 functional public toilets.

The picture shows project partners discussing bid documents and proposed sites for public toilets The picture shows project partners discussing bid documents and proposed sites for public toilets The picture shows project partners discussing bid documents and proposed sites for public toilets.

The picture above shows project partners discussing the bid documents and brainstorming on the proposed sites for public toilets