Mzuzu City Council has obtained an injunction from the High Court to start using Msilo Waste Facility which people torched last year.
The closure followed misunderstandings between community members and the city council over sanitation issues.
But in his ruling last week, Judge Thomson Ligowe granted the council an interlocutory injunction which restrains defendants from occupying, trespassing, developing or locking out the council officials from using the facility.
Reads the ruling in part: “It is further ordered that before taking new waste to the Msilo Waste Management Facility, the claimant shall put in placeeverything to satisfy the standards as laid down in the Environmental Management Act and any other relevant laws on the matter to avoid the facility from degenerating to the situation complained of by the defendants.”
In a separate interview, Mzuzu City Council spokesperson McDonald Gondwe said the council is doing excavations and landfills at Msilo.
He said: “The key condition is that we should follow the Environmental Management Act. So far we have dug five landfills.
“One of the trenches is already in use. The council commits to sustainably manage the site for the betterment of us all.”
Last year, Vice-President Saulos Chilima expressed his disappointment with the city’s poor waste management.
The K220 million facility financed by the European Union was commissioned by former first lady Gertrude Mutharika in May 2017 to end the unsafe dumping of waste in Mchengautuwa landfill.
