Months after the official roll-out of wheelie bins in Kempton Park, the municipality still does not have its ducks (trucks) in a row.
The collection of refuse throughout Kempton Park has been erratic for more than six months, mainly due to the fact that Ekurhuleni’s waste department is incapable of synchronising the wheelie bin roll-out with the procurement of modified trucks to accommodate the wheelie bins, said DA shadow MMC for environmental development and waste management, Alderman André du Plessis.
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“There have been numerous ward roll-out programmes. However, there are still not sufficient modified trucks to service all the areas where bins have been rolled out. As councillors we receive literally hundreds of complaints every week from irate residents whose refuse has not been collected on their scheduled days,” Du Plessis added.
“This is confusing for communities who pay for and expect a service on the scheduled days. It also creates confusion on their utility bills, as residents who have received wheelie bins are expecting to be charged the tariff for the bins. However, this has also not been synchronised.”
Kempton Express has forwarded queries about this to the metro for weeks now but they have failed to reply.
Du Plessis said trade unions were also interfering, demanding overtime money.
“Ekurhuleni placed a moratorium on overtime and capped it at 40 hours a month, as it was costing the metro millions of Rands every month.
“This has resulted in teams operating from the Kempton depot maliciously defying management’s instructions to collect refuse from wheelie bins as well as black bags. Either only bins are serviced or only bags are collected. The teams then finish early and return to the depot in anticipation of catching up with backlogs over weekends, which means overtime.
“This is gross insubordination refusing to carry out a reasonable instruction from their supervisors, which is to complete their daily scheduled rounds. We as councillors demand that staff members responsible for the lack of service delivery, be disciplined,” Du Plessis said.
He also blamed the total lack of effective communication, from the Kempton depot manager up to the MMC, for the current crisis.
Another contributing factor is the fact that the position of head of department (HOD) for waste management and numerous divisional head positions were scrapped. There will be only one HOD for this entire department.
“During a conference in June last year, it was agreed by all political parties present that it was not a viable option to do away with the position of waste management HOD. However, MMC Ndosi Shongwe capitulated under political pressure and agreed with the ANC afterwards, in a council meeting, to scrap these positions.”
Currently there is no HOD for waste management and only an acting HOD for the entire combined department.
Du Plessis requested Shongwe to do the honourable thing and resign with immediate effect.
