“Look what state the city is in. She makes me nauseous. It’s as if we were pigs and lived in a pigsty,” sighs Brigitte Nguetcheu, a maize brazier based in Bependa, a popular district of Douala, Cameroon’s economic capital. In front of her, a huge pile of garbage covers part of the road and sidewalk shared by pedestrians, motorcycles and cars. Swarms of flies escape. The smell is fetid. “An open-air trash can,” laments the shopkeeper.
For several months, agents of Hygiene and Sanitation of Cameroon (Hysacam), the private company responsible for the collection and treatment of household waste in seventeen cities of the country, no longer provide collection in Douala. The result: From outlying neighborhoods to downtown, trash litters streets and roads, piles up in markets, bar and restaurant fronts, clogs bridges and gutters as the rainy season, which runs through august to november kicks in and adds to the chaos.
“Death lurks around us”
The inhabitants of the economic capital speak of it as a geography of defilement that would have been superimposed on the urban fabric. “Mountain of garbage”, “lake of waste”, “island of dirt”… The population complains of “these odors which suffocate, invade space and prevent breathing and living”, “mosquitoes which have tripled in volume”, “black and green colored water that oozes from the garbage to the houses and water wells”. “The situation is untenable, how long are we going to suffer like this? Asks Kontele Goldefroy, a resident of the Makeppe district. Death lurks around us. »
Hysacam, created in 1969 by the French group Grandjouan and nationalized in 1995, is not its first failure. The company has experienced, in recent years, repeated strikes for poor working conditions and unpaid salary arrears, as well as a chronic problem of lack of trucks, due to breakdowns or lack of fuel. “It’s a financial problem. Structurally, the company is facing late payments from its main customer, which is the State, ”explains Gyna Angoun, head of external communication at Hysacam.
According to Cameroonian law, the management of household waste is the responsibility of the State and the municipalities, which can decide via calls for tenders to entrust the cleaning of certain cities to companies such as Hysacam. “It’s an activity that really requires very high operating costs, maintenance of the vehicle fleet, human resources. If the payments are not guaranteed, we have an impact on the quality of the service”, continues Gyna Angoun, who specifies that at the end of 2022 the government owed approximately 7.6 billion CFA francs (11.6 million euros) to the ‘business.
Thousands of cholera cases
The crisis, if it is not contained in time, risks having serious health consequences, warns Hans Mossi Makembe, coordinator of the fight against epidemics in the Littoral region, of which Douala is the capital. “In our region, we live with endemic cholera,” recalls the doctor, who fears an increase in diarrheal diseases. Since the start of the cholera epidemic in 2021, Cameroon has recorded more than 19,000 cases, for more than 460 deaths according to the Ministry of Public Health. The Littoral region leads the contagion, with more than 7,500 cases.
Because, even in normal times, Hysacam struggles to ensure waste collection in the cities where it operates. “The rate of garbage collection in Douala and Yaoundé, the capital, hovers around 45%,” says Didier Yimkoua, a member of the Ecologie en Marche movement, noting that plastic or electronic waste, which is carcinogenic, once swallowed up in the soil or spilled into waterways, contaminate soil and fish species.
The environmentalist takes as an example scrap metal and lead-acid batteries, which cannot be found in garbage bins because they are purchased and transported internationally for recycling. “We proposed the purchase at 50 CFA francs per kilo of household waste. If we graft the market value, I am convinced that we can rid our cities of garbage, ”he assures. Pending the materialization of this project, Hysacam ensures that it is working with the government to resume regular waste collection.
