GOAL hands over vacuum truck and motorcycles to Freetown City Council to support faecal sludge management

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, GOAL has handed over a vacuum truck and two motorcycles funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to Freetown City Council (FCC), as part of a Faecal Sludge Management Project. The initiative is part of a building block that will support FCC in achieving a sanitation target of increasing the safe disposal of liquid waste from 6% to 60% by 2022.

The truck will be used to collect liquid waste from the residents in Freetown and the motorbikes will be used to enforce sanitation bylaws by FCC’s Metropolitan Police. The vacuum truck will be leased and operated by Zheiba Enterprises, as part of a service level agreement following a tendering process.

The vaccuum truck given to FCC to be used to remove liquid waste from households in Freetown.

At a ceremony held in August to mark the initiative, the Mayor of Freetown, Madam Aki-Sawyerr OBE, expressed her gratitude and appreciation on behalf of herself and the entire FCC team for the donation, saying that another ‘‘milestone’’  had been reached in the “Transform Freetown Agenda”. Madam Mayor added: “Today we are meeting two objectives: improving the collection of faecal sludge and contributing to job creation.’’

The mayor also thanked GOAL, saying: “GOAL was with us yesterday; they are with us today and they will be with us tomorrow.” She added that many more homes will now be able to have their septic tanks emptied in a timely manner and have the faecal sludge safely disposed of.

GOAL’s Country Director in Sierra Leone, Gashaw Mekonnen, said GOAL appreciates the existing partnership with FCC and the efforts made in improving sanitation, particularly with Faecal Sludge Management in Freetown. “We have come a long way and we still have a long way to go, this is just the beginning”. The Country Director also expressed GOAL’s continued commitment to support the “Transform Freetown Agenda’’ in close partnership with FCC and other key stakeholders.

GOAL Country Director Gashaw Mekonnen, Mayor of Freetown Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, FCC Chief Administrator Festus Kallay and Deputy Mayor of FCC Osman Koroma at the ceremony.

GOAL has extensive experience implementing both rural and urban water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming in Sierra Leone. In Freetown, GOAL has been implementing Faecal Sludge Management projects since 2016. It also works to improve sanitation by supporting system governance and implementing changes on both the demand and supply side of emptying and transport services.