Four years ago, Pomona was shorthand for everything wrong with Harare's rubbish: recurrent fires, smoke drifting over the neighbourhoods around the site, and a waste-to-energy deal that residents' groups called a scandal. Today, government is holding it up as the model for Bulawayo and other cities.
With the same company now being pushed into Bulawayo's Ngozi Mine, it is a good moment to ask what has actually been delivered at Pomona, and what has not.
What the deal was
In 2022, the City of Harare signed a joint venture with Geogenix BV, a Dutch company, to take over the Pomona dumpsite and build a waste-to-energy plant. It is a 30-year build, own, operate and transfer arrangement, with the site reverting to the city at the end, the Herald reports. The local operating company is Geo Pomona Waste Management.
The terms were controversial from the start. The Standard reported in 2022 that the deal was not put to tender and that the city would pay Geogenix US$40 for every tonne of waste delivered to the dumpsite, rising to millions of dollars a year. The Combined Harare Residents Association has argued that council equipment and workers were moved across without proper consultation, and its director Reuben Akili told New Zimbabwe that decisions made outside council "create room for corruption". The same report said, without naming its source, that the company's local focal person, Dilesh Nguwaya, and a son of the President each held half of its shares.
What has been built
Geo Pomona's case rests on what is now visible at the site. By its own account, the land has been cleared, disposal areas set aside, access roads built and the site fenced and gated, replacing a dumpsite where gas build-up used to cause recurrent fires.
When the sorting plant was commissioned in June 2025, the Herald reported 150 extra jobs at that facility and more than 500 across construction and operations, 45 new refuse trucks, and a plan for skip bins across the city. The company said it had cleared most of Harare's illegal dumpsites that year.
By March 2026, the Herald listed a weighbridge, a hazardous waste landfill, an encapsulation unit, a water treatment plant, a fleet service centre and the sorting plant as completed. The company says there is also a football pitch and tennis and basketball courts, and the President commissioned a restaurant at the site, which prompted Tourism Minister Barbara Rwodzi to call the site "a tourism destination".
The part that is not finished
The centrepiece of the whole arrangement, the power station, is still under construction. The March 2026 Herald report describes an 18 to 22 megawatt plant being built, designed to process up to 1,000 tonnes of waste a day. BinGo could not find a public, independent confirmation that Pomona is yet feeding electricity into the national grid, and the company's own website still describes the plant as planned. If that changes, we will update this piece.
That matters because the power plant is what was meant to justify the long-term fees. Sorting and landfill management are valuable, but they are not the same thing as turning Harare's rubbish into electricity.
How the politics shifted
Perhaps the most striking change has been at Town House. In 2022, mayor Jacob Mafume likened the deal to corruption that had taken an energy drink, according to FairPlanet. By 2025 he was telling residents that some things can be done better with the private sector, and pointing out that the dumpsite no longer smells and residents were not paying extra for it, New Zimbabwe reported.
Residents' groups have not moved as far. CHRA remains opposed to how the deal was made, and Bulawayo's civic groups want any similar deal in their city to go through competitive tender with its financial terms disclosed, CITE reports.
Who is affected, and what comes next
For people living near Pomona, the change is real. Fewer fires and less smoke are exactly what Cowdray Park in Bulawayo is asking for now. For ratepayers, the question is still the bill, and whether the per-tonne fee is value for money until the power plant is running. For Zimbabwe's other cities, Pomona is now the template government wants to copy, which makes its unanswered questions everyone's questions.
The two things to watch are simple. First, when the power station starts generating, and how much. Second, whether the Bulawayo negotiations produce a contract that is published in full.
Sources
- Geo Pomona's waste-to-energy initiative powers ahead with new restaurant commissioning, The Herald
- Transforming waste into energy: Launch of Pomona Sorting Plant, The Herald
- Harare's Geo-Pomona waste-to-energy deal sparks corruption fears, NewZimbabwe.com
- Pomona scandal a tip of the iceberg, The Standard
- The foul waste-to-energy deal that could bankrupt Zimbabwe's capital, FairPlanet
- Geo Pomona Waste Management
- Bulawayo residents reject government directive on Geo Pomona deal, CITE
Written by Rufaro
Plain-language guides to getting rid of anything in Zimbabwe, properly.
