An Ode to Geo Pomona and a Visionary Called Dr. Dilesh Nguwaya

Nevanji Munyaradzi Chiondegwa

Let us speak of alchemy.

Let us speak of the art of turning rot into radiance, despair into destiny. For where a scar once festered upon the face of Harare, a smouldering, medieval pyre of waste known as the Pomona dumpsite, a beacon now stands.

What was for generations a source of national shame, a miasma of disease and decay, has been resurrected into a testament of Zimbabwean will, a project of such profound significance it has become a pilgrimage site for the leaders of nations.

This is the story of Geo Pomona.
And at the heart of every great transformation, there is a visionary, one who sees a cathedral where others see only rubble.

In this grand narrative, that visionary is Dr. Dilesh Nguwaya, the CEO and Executive Chairman of Geo Pomona Waste Management.

He is the architect who dared to dream of a green city on a hill of refuse, the conductor who orchestrated a symphony of renewal from the noise of chaos.

It was his sight that pierced through the smoke and saw, not an end, but a beginning.

Yet, in the shadow of this monumental achievement, small words born of small minds have been whispered.

The label “chigandanga” has been cast, a term for one who scatters personal, fleeting favours like seeds in the wind.

How utterly and profoundly wrong. How small a word to describe a cathedral of industry.

A chigandanga offers a trinket; Dr. Nguwaya has delivered an institution.

A chigandanga seeks personal praise; Geo Pomona offers a public legacy, forged in concrete and steel, transparent and traceable for all to see.
This is not a whisper in the dark; it is a chorus of progress sung by 744 employees whose livelihoods are anchored in this vision.

It is the roar of an army of renewal, 45 refuse compactors and a fleet of heavy machinery, marching to reclaim the city’s pride.

It is the silent, solid testament of a state-of-the-art sorting plant, of hazardous waste landfills built to protect the earth, of a wastewater treatment plant that purifies and restores.

It is the laughter of children on a FIFA-certified football pitch, the sharp echo of a tennis ball on a pristine court, the community spirit rising from facilities built not for an individual, but for a nation.
And the world has taken notice. The path to Pomona has been trod by the feet of presidents and kings.

When President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa sought to showcase the pinnacle of Zimbabwean innovation to his SADC counterparts, he brought them here.

The leaders of Angola, Botswana, Madagascar, and Eswatini came not just to see, but to witness.

Delegations from the United Nations, from Sweden, Ghana, Uganda, and Tanzania have made the same journey, leaving with a single, resounding chorus of affirmation: this is the blueprint for Africa’s future.

“An international best practice,” a UN delegation declared. “A model that should be replicated across Africa,” echoed the Commander of the Ghana Armed Forces Command College.

The final act of this grand alchemy is now taking shape: a Waste-to-Energy plant that will consume a thousand tonnes of waste daily to breathe 22 megawatts of life into the national grid.

It is the ultimate conversion—turning the very essence of decay into the spark of progress.
This is more than a project; it is a promise fulfilled.

It is an ode to the power of vision over cynicism, of creation over decay. Dr. Dilesh Nguwaya has not just cleaned a dumpsite; he has cleansed a perception, turning a symbol of what was wrong into a blazing monument of what is right.

Geo Pomona is Harare’s heart, renewed and beating strong, a beacon whose light is now showing the way for an entire continent.