"The big problem is that we want to solve the problem of garbage by hiring big companies to take millions. Isn't it better to hire thousands of Angolans for each one to take their pennies and from that we can make a big project?", affirmed Francisco Viana.
The garbage, said the businessman, "can be luxury" and "we have to transform the garbage into money," he defended, considering that the authorities should put young people, especially in areas where trucks don't go, to collect waste, in Luanda.
"Put our young people in those areas where not even garbage trucks enter, those three-wheeled motorcycles and there develop the activity," advocated the president of CEA.
Francisco Viana, who was speaking at the presentation of the II Congress of Production and the Productive Sector, scheduled for November 4 to 6, also defended the "decentralization" of the garbage deposit and transformation area.
"It is not just concentrating everything in the Mulenvos (Luanda Landfill), but [there should] be several areas where the garbage is modified (...) there needs to be the mentality of seeing the small grow," he stressed.
"The vocation of the CEA is exactly to work at the service of the small, medium and micro-entrepreneurs and this garbage will only be solved by serving the medium and small operators (...). This has to involve the population, the government alone will never manage," he noted.
The problem of solid waste management in the capital has been dragging on since December 2020, when the Luanda Provincial Government (GPL) announced the suspension of contracts with cleaning and garbage collection companies, due to an inability to settle a debt of 246 billion kwanzas, indexed to the dollar.
An "emergency operation" to clean up the garbage accumulated in Luanda began on Monday, involving cleaning and construction companies and personnel from the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA).
The plan under the auspices of a multi-sectoral commission and presented by the Minister of State for Social Affairs, Carolina Cerqueira, was created to support the government of Luanda and aims to help solve the problems inherent in the accumulation, collection and treatment of garbage, in order to avoid greater evils related to public health and environmental degradation.
The work will be carried out by construction companies that "voluntarily agreed to participate in the large-scale cleaning operation" that began on Monday, as well as operators with a tradition in garbage collection and the Armed Forces.
The Minister of State and head of the President's Security House, Pedro Sebastião, said that "some personnel from Luanda's military garrison" will be "mobilized", without specifying how many military personnel will be involved.
As for the construction companies, 12 were mobilized, according to the Minister of Public Works and Land Planning, Manuel Tavares, of which five have already started the "activity of collecting the existing garbage.
In February, the President of the Republic approved an expenditure of 34.89 billion kwanzas, for the acquisition of public cleaning services and solid waste collection.
From the emergency tender that was opened in the meantime, among the 39 companies that applied, seven won, which will ensure the cleaning of the nine municipalities of Luanda.
However, despite the fact that the work started at the end of March, the piles of garbage are still visible in all areas of the province.
