People living around Buterere wastewater plant are illegal, says Environment Ministry

Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Lives Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock has said all the people living around Buterere wastewater plant in the north of the capital Bujumbura illegally occupied the locality and therefore have to leave it. ock has said all the people living around Buterere wastewater plant in the north of the capital Bujumbura illegally occupied the locality and therefore have to leave it.

Déo Guide Rurema: “Land and house occupiers around Buterere wastewater plant must leave the locality for the good of their future generation”

After a survey conducted by four ministries including the Ministry of Public Security, that of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Environment and that of Public Works, the then town planning officials and administrative authorities misused the power they had.

Déo Guide Rurema, Minister of Environment, Agriculture and Livestock said they had no authority to grant a plot of land to any person. “They did it for their own benefits,” he says. Minister Rurema also says the government has already identified those who were involved in the issue and adds that they will be brought to justice. “They must be punished according to the law,”

As for Prosper Muyuku, Chief of National Service of Hygiene and Sanitation in the Ministry of Public Health, he has raised some concerns over the negative impacts that the proximity to a wastewater treatment plant can have on people. He says residents are exposed to biological and chemical risks from wastewater.

“There is a progressive degradation of the environment, health, economic quality and the fabric of the society,” he says adding that all these occupiers must leave the place for the good of their future generation.

Minister Déo Guide Rurema has said that the issue of those inhabitants will be seriously analyzed before they are moved from the place. “There are those who hold documents given by the town planning officials and authorities without the administrative competence to do so and others who erected houses in that locality without any official permission,” he says.

Minister Rurema has said that last category of people must leave the place without any condition. He has also said the period of one month that has been given to local residents to leave the area can be extended for more sensitization campaigns on the danger that living around Buterere wastewater plant could bring.

Residents, too, had complained that the period given was not enough.

On 9 February, the National Security Council had asked the various ministries having this issue in their attribution to separate the two categories of occupiers before any eviction measure could be taken. Silas Ntigurirwa, Permanent Secretary of the National Security Council said the two categories of people should be treated separately.