Today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) in Emfuleni tabled a motion to debate and offer solutions to our municipality’s waste woes. This is after the municipality failed to collect waste weekly in most parts of its 45 wards, again.
The embattled municipality faces many challenges, amongst which waste is one of them. Currently, the municipality functions with five trucks which are only servicing the Vanderbijlpark and Vereeniging areas. Sebokeng is left with no proper waste collection plan, as contractors that were assigned to assist with waste collection have not signed the Full Maintenance Lease (FML).
Waste at homes thus remain uncollected, but residents continue to be billed for this ‘service’. At this point, it is tantamount to fraud.
The Executive Mayor Cllr Sipho Radebe and Gauteng MEC Jacob Mamabolo launched “Phakama Vaal” to great fanfare, with the supposed goal of cleaning up the Vaal. When the initiative launched there were an estimated 308 illegal dumping sites; and after this initiative, they have risen to over 320. This was yet another ANC-led failure, focused on optics, but no real solutions.
Today, the DA therefore recommended that:
•The municipality procures 38 waste compactor trucks, which are needed as per our waste operational plan, to ensure that the municipality can be able to collect waste weekly at all 45 wards;
•The municipality resumes daily waste collection at Central Business Districts;
•Introduce “skip bins” in already existing dumping sites with a clear collection strategy; and
•All waste compactor trucks be fitted with tracking devices in order to be able to monitor whether collection of waste is done as scheduled.
These measures will ensure that Emfuleni restores reliable waste management services and delivers the quality service that residents deserve.