Harare's streets are, once again, the subject of a government clean-up blitz. On 9 September 2026, ZBC News announced that "Chenesa Harare Final" was underway, targeting illegal vending and structures in the CBD and other undesignated sites in a renewed push to "restore cleanliness, order and accessibility" to the capital.
The name is a nod to history that Harare residents know all too well. Operation Chenesa Harare (Shona for "clean Harare") was first launched by the Ministry of Local Government in January 2024, aimed squarely at rubbish removal during a cholera scare, before evolving into a broader assault on illegal street vending. According to allAfrica, Cabinet has now formally backed a fresh round targeting informal vendors in Newlands, Belvedere, Belgravia and the CBD, with Transport Minister Felix Mhona chairing the Cabinet Committee on Utilities and Infrastructural Development that signed off on the measures.
Herald Online has been blunter about how the earlier phases actually played out. In an April 2024 report headlined "Council Sold Residents a Dummy with Fake Operation," the paper described waste dumps reappearing across the city within months of the launch, piling up at bus termini and in high-density suburbs like Highfield and Mbare. Residents quoted in that piece said they had no choice but to keep dumping, because council compactors rarely reached their areas.
That pattern, welcome intervention followed by relapse, has repeated. NewsDay reported that when the operation first ran in early 2024, the government explicitly framed it as an emergency response to cholera, not a long-term fix, and residents' groups such as the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) said as much at the time. CHRA director Reuben Akili told the paper the removal drive had no sustainability plan attached to it.
Government has also tried muscle: the January 2024 donation of 52 Belarusian tractors, split across five newly created collection regions, was meant to plug the gap left by the council's ageing compactor fleet. Mayor Jacob Mafume described the arrangement as government and council "complementing" each other. A year later, NewZimbabwe.com found the tractors' whereabouts unclear, and the city was instead outsourcing to neighbouring municipalities to clear festive-season garbage, with council spokesperson Stanley Gama admitting the local authority "didn't have adequate trucks."
What it means for Harare residents
Whether "Chenesa Harare Final" breaks that cycle will matter well beyond the CBD's pavements. Cabinet's own history with vendor clean-ups, unsuccessful attempts in 2006, 2016, 2019 and 2024, per allAfrica's reporting, suggests the informal vending problem is structural: it reflects an economy where formal jobs are scarce and street trading is often the only income available. Removing vendors without addressing that economic reality tends to produce a temporary clearing rather than a permanent one.
For waste specifically, the deeper issue is capacity. Harare's health director has previously put the city's truck fleet at roughly a quarter of what it needs, a gap no clean-up blitz can close on its own. If this round of Chenesa Harare is to outlast the news cycle, residents and ratepayer groups are likely to keep pressing council for the unglamorous follow-through: regular collection schedules, functioning trucks, and a real plan for where the rubbish goes once it is off the streets.
Sources
- Zimbabwe: Cabinet Backs Harare's Clean Up - As Government Declares Intensive 60-Day Programme, allAfrica
- OPERATION 'CHENESA HARARE FINAL' UNDERWAY, Mafaro
- COUNCIL SOLD RESIDENTS A DUMMY WITH FAKE OPERATION, Herald Online
- Chemicals shortage crippling Harare water supplies, NewsDay Zimbabwe
- Overwhelmed City of Harare Hires Trucks From Three Councils to Collect Mounting Garbage, allAfrica/NewZimbabwe.com
Written by Rufaro
Plain-language guides to getting rid of anything in Zimbabwe, properly.
