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WATCH: MMC weighs in on landfills, grass-cutting issues

The MMC said those who want to take care of their neighbourhoods themselves are welcome to do so.

MMC for Ekurhuleni Environmental Resource and Waste Management (ERWM) Leshaka Manamela has added his comment on the provision of grass-cutting and landfill services, as well as the state of affairs within the department.

While he acknowledged some challenges within the department, Manamela appeared to be adamant that everything is within control as far as public space maintenance and landfill sites management is concerned.

“We have succeed in dealing with most of the challenges with regard to landfills and grass-cutting, and now everything is under control. And we managed to do that through our task team and the recently launched ‘Clean Your Kasi, Manje Namhlanje’ campaign aimed at addressing the issue of grass-cutting and to mitigate illegal dumping.

“The issue of landfill sites is well taken care of. We now have four operational and are about to have the fifth one back in operation. With the issue of waste collection, we had problems here and there but it was not as a result of the department not being able to provide those services.

“In certain areas we have outsourced those particular services. We have contractual agreements with service providers, but in turn some of contractors do their work through subcontracting part of the work, and when they have their own financial disputes like issues of payments, they withdraw their services.

“However, we still intervene by bringing in our resources to deal with the backlog in those areas where we outsourced waste collection.”

Manamela admitted that the city has had a delay in terms of advertising the contract, but they have developed a strategy to use their internal staff and resources to deal with the workload.

“Yes, the issue of contract has mainly put us in this situation, but we are not sitting back waiting for the contractors. We are on the ground dealing with the overgrown spaces.

“Yes, we might be dealing with a backlog, but once the contractor have been appointed everything shall be back to normal.

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The appalling state of the city’s public spaces, including parks and road reserves, has seen individuals and businesses taking matters into their own hands, cleaning and cutting the grass at their expense.

We sought the MMC’s stance on members of the public taking on municipal responsibilities.

In his response, Manamela said while these remain municipal responsibilities, those who are willing and able to take care of their neighbourhood, whether through organised community clean-ups or grass-cutting, are, in his view, welcome to do so.

“It’s not something that they have to do, but we understand that because of where we are now there are some residents who are cleaning their areas, and we can’t stop them because they do that out of their own volition.”

Also Read: WATCH: Fists fly at council meeting

Also Read: Metro blames load-shedding on deteriorating state of council flats

   

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