BUJUMBURA May 10th (ABP) – A local non-governmental organization called the Environmental Protection Association (EPA) has just started the sanitation and protection works on the facilities that have been built in the Gasenyi, Gahahe and Gatunguru neighborhoods (Mutimbuzi commune), Carama and Buhinyuza (Kinama urban zone) with funding from the World Bank via ABUTIP, a check on the site by ABP has revealed.
Those works, which will be maintained by the EPA, are alluvial evacuation channels of the Gasenyi River that were built under the Emergency Resilience Project (PURI). They were built at the request of the inhabitants of those neighborhoods who were victims of floods during periods of rain.
The intervention of that local NGO is part of the project “Sanitation and protection of the banks of the Gasenyi River built by the PURI project of infrastructures (downstream)”. The project is funded by the World Bank, according to Mr. Ntunzwenimana, legal representative of the EPA. The implementation of this project, he continued to say, was authorized by the Minister in charge of the Environment through correspondence referenced 71/3915/2018 addressed to the legal representative of the EPA on October 18, 2018.
In addition, the EPA protects the banks of this river while being required to be guided by the technical services of the Ministry in the choice of species to plant there.
Mr. Ntunzwenimana said that the activities of the project will focus mainly on the cleaning of gutters, the protection of the banks of this river by planting false bamboos. While waiting for the delimitation of the perimeter where those false bamboos will be planted, he continued to say, the EPA is currently taking care of the cleaning of that infrastructure.
The inhabitants of the neighborhoods that are crossed by the Gasenyi River, who already feared the overflow of those evacuation channels from the Gasenyi River following sand deposits from the buttresses overhanging their neighborhoods, appreciate positively this intervention of the World Bank.
The EPA has a one-year renewable contract to execute this project. The implementation of this project will be monitored more closely by experts from ABUTIP and those from the Ministry in charge of the Environment.
