La Palisse, Alpha Palace hotels reprimanded over waste disposal

Kigali’s medium level hotels La Palisse Hotel Nyandugu and Alpha Place have both faced the wrath of city authorities over lack of proper waste disposal systems.La Palisse was fined Rwf2 million after a city inspection team yesterday found its staff discharging waste into the Nyandugu wetland which sandwiches the hotel.Alpha Palace was warned against releasing waste into the neighbourhood, but escaped fines because the inspectors did not see the staff engaged in the malpractices – as was the case with the former.La Palisse has three days within which to pay the fine.Both hotels lack a water treatment plant and proper waste management, according to John Mugabo, the in charge of hygiene and environment protection at the City of Kigali.Mugabo coordinated the inspection at the two hotels, which were incidentally both closed for three days in July 2011 by the Ministry of Health for falling short of minimum hygiene and sanitation standards.Mugabo warned La Palisse manager Roger Kalisa and Alpha Place proprietor Alexis Bayingana, that they faced tougher actions, including suspension of operations, should they fail to fix the problems within two weeks.At Alpha Palace, Bayingana claimed that they had a water treatment facility but the inspectors could not find one.Mugabo and his team worked on a tip off from residents.The inspection team said it had heard that whenever it rains, the two hotels discharge all the waste from the kitchen, toilets and the swimming pool into the open channels in the neighborhoods (Alpha) or the wetland (La Palisse).At La Palisse, the team found that the hotel had created a channel that directly released waste into the wetland, while Alpha Palace reportedly always discharged waste in an open channel in the neighbourhood.The hotel was found to have laid pipes linking the toilets and the kitchen to an open drain in the neighhbourhood.Mugabo was instructed to immediately uproot the pipe that links the hotel with the surrounding wetland into which it released waste.Residents expressed relief at the action.“It was such a discomfort… even last night, they discharged stinking waste and we were obliged to cook from inside the house,” said Gedeon Hitimana, who resides in the environs of Alpha Palace.Mugabo said such practices constituted a threat both to people’s health and the environment.

National

La Palisse, Alpha Palace hotels reprimanded over waste disposal