The stinking piles of waste due to the City of Ekurhuleni’s failure to remove uncollected rubbish has left residents of Ekurhuleni feeling humiliated and neglected. To reduce pressure on households from the piles of rubbish, most of unoccupied land in some parts of the municity have been turned into a dumping site by the frustrated residents.
Last week, the Head of the Department for Environmental Resources and Waste Management in the City, Faith Wotshela, was placed on special leave and unconfirmed reports said it was over rubbish collection. Areas that are affected by a lack of garbage collection include Benoni, Boksburg and Kempton Park.
Among the residents who have had enough of the filth is Helen Moleko from Teanong, Tembisa and is appealing to politicians to put their differences aside and focus on service delivery. “Please Ekurhuleni [Municipality], give us services because we pay for them. We don’t care about political squabbles, whether you are the DA, the ANC or ActionSA, the services should not be neglected in your politics,” she said.
Another resident, Tshehla Mohlala described the situation as embarrassing. “What the municipality is doing it’s embarrassing, if people are throwing their rubbish like this it shows they have nowhere to throw it away. It would be better if the municipality were to come to collect more than once a week, as it stands things are bad”.
The smell and filth attracts rats that are disruptive to the informal business. Susan Ntimane, who has been selling fruits for the past six years at a busy Swaz-inn street said flies are all over her stock and make it hard for customers to buy.
“This place is not clean and people don’t want to buy fruits buzzing with flies all over them. The municipality must just do its work,” she said. Ntimane argued that since the DA took over the reins from the coalition government led by the ANC following the local government elections last year in November the place has gone from bad to worse.
“This place was clean – only dirty now and then, but now it’s worse since the DA took over. When people litter here we can’t even stop them even though it directly affects us because they argue that this road belongs to the municipality. This also affects our health. Imagine sitting in this filth the whole day. Sometimes our children are here and it’s not right.”
The City of Ekurhuleni spokesperson Zweli Dlamini told Newsnote on our visit to the municipality offices in Germiston that the issues are caused by contractors who stopped providing services as they were not paid.
“We have a problem with solid waste, you would have seen or heard the mayor Tania Campbell when she was re-appointed last week, she did make it clear that she wants a turnaround strategy, as a result of that, the City Manager has put in place a team that is dealing with waste removal in the city,” he said.
Dlamini said the municipality is restoring services with extra resources being provided. “As I’m talking to you now we started dealing with back-logs throughout the affected areas in the city. Tembisa is serviced by private contractors, as well as other areas like Kwa-Thema, Tsakane and Duduza.” He again put it down to a misunderstanding between the municipality and the contractors over payments, that he said led to this situation.
