Frustrated by prolonged service delivery failure by the Bushbuckridge municipality since the beginning of December last year, residents of Dwarsloop took matters into their own hands.

They dumped weeks’ worth of uncollected refuse in front of Dwarsloop Civic Centre, a satellite office of the Bushbuckridge Local Municipality (BLM).

According to Afrika Mayibuye Movement’s regional chairperson for Bohlabela, Trevor Nkosi, residents of Dwarsloop have had no refuse removal two months.

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“The only language that the government listens to is a protest. In this case the people decided to throw the rubbish in front the local municipal office to see if the municipality will remove it,” said Nkosi.

He added that water has also not been available to the community for weeks, and said that after the protest action, water started flowing from the taps.

Nkosi claims that water was available, but withheld from the community.

“If there was a problem with water infrastructure, the municipality would not have immediately managed to make water available within a short space of time.”

BLM spokesperson Fhumulani Thovhakale told Lowvelder that the refuse compactor that was used to collect rubbish in Dwarsloop was involved in an accident on December 26 last year.

“This affected the refuse collection services in Dwarsloop.”

Thovhakale said that the community was informed about the breakdown of the truck, adding that one was brought in from another area to assist Dwarsloop.

“Unfortunately, as you are aware, we started to experience heavy rain downpours in our area, wherein services were disrupted.”

She said refuse collection services have returned to normal.