Trucks added to CoE’s fleet to resolve waste removal backlog
Campbell said they were rolling out the fleet they have hired to normalise waste collection in Ekurhuleni.
Ekurhuleni’s Solid Waste Department started a cleaning campaign to get rid of the city’s backlog in waste collection.
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City of Ekurhuleni Mayor Tania Campbell, the MMC for Environmental and Waste management Brandon Pretorius and other officials visited the Alberton depot on February 27, the day the campaign started.
The visit was part of Campbell’s back-to-basics approach to service delivery.
It was also to assure residents that Ekurhuleni’s fleet has reached its maximum capacity after the city approved a plant hire tender and received 36 vehicles.
Campbell said they were rolling out the fleet they have hired to normalise waste collection in Ekurhuleni.
“We experienced a challenge with waste removal with trucks breaking down now and then.
The city managed to purchase new trucks, but we need to get to a stage where everything is back to normal.
“What we have is a tender that allows us to rent trucks as and when we need them to provide efficient service delivery,” said Campbell.
Campbell said going forward, if there are unforeseen circumstances with breakdowns, they had a signed contract to hire trucks to keep the waste collection in the city in order.
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The city now has at least 58 trucks servicing it.
Previously the City of Ekurhuleni has hired trucks that were not in the best condition, which made it more difficult to keep up with waste collection across Ekurhuleni.
Pretorius said that it was important for the city to replace its internal fleet as soon as possible and only employ this plant hire tender when necessary.
“The city’s ultimate goal is to stabilise the rotational collection of waste in all parts of Ekurhuleni.
“This means that the waste will be dumped to our landfill sites, not to our mini dumpsites to ensure that the city is clean and tidy,” said Pretorius.
Poor service delivery in Alberton
Service delivery became worse since the beginning of the year, with issues like illegal dumping, uncollected waste, unpleasant state at the landfills and long uncut grass popping up.
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The Alberton Record sent countless queries to the City of Ekurhuleni to address these issues.
The most common comment the Alberton Record received from the city was that the city continued to have a high rate of vehicle breakdowns, which prevented it from collecting waste according to the refuse removal calendar.
The fleet management department worked with the environmental and waste management department to guarantee the improvement of the turnaround time for repairs and vehicle breakdowns.
Recently approved adjustment budget
With the much-needed adjustment budget, the City of Ekurhuleni has promised to ensure delivery of adequate services.
“With the passing of this adjustment budget, we are now in a position to purchase waste compactors to replace our ageing in-house fleet,” said MMC for Finance, Economic Development and Information Communication, Fanyana Nkosi.
Nkosi also said the multi-party coalition remains committed to ensuring that all residents receive service delivery.
The approval of this budget will now give expression to the needs of our people.
Other promises made by CoE to local with the adjusted budget
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• With the city’s roads, being adversely impacted by recent rains and riddled with potholes, can now be attended to and brought up to the standard that residents deserve.
• Long overdue grass-cutting will now take place.
• City cemeteries will be cleaned up.
• Cleaning of the towns and cities.
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