Is KwaDukuza the dirtiest town in KZN?

Dismaying scenes of streets overflowing with trash in KwaDukuza (Stanger) are hard to ignore.

Despite governments’ call for citizens to roll up their sleeves and clean up SA, the town’s filth is the worst it’s ever been.

The “Good Green Deeds”, a national cleanup campaign was launched by President Cyril Ramaphosa in March this year.

The president visited KwaDukuza and was seen sweeping the streets. He said he wanted to emulate Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s model where once a month residents come together to clean up their areas.

“In Rwanda, one day in every month, whether you are the president, premier, mayor or a municipal manager, everybody wears overalls and cleans the town,” said Ramaphosa.

Six months later and the town, home to the council chambers and King Shaka himself, is as filthy as ever.

The town of KwaDukuza takes its name from its early history, when it was the site of Dukuza, a settlement of King Shaka, and is home to King Shaka’s grave-site and memorial.

However, visitors to the town’s centre, are confronted with the filth rather than the history.

Resident of KwaDukuza Selvin Chetty said the number of informal settlements that have emerged has contributed to the social decay of the town.

“The informal settlement has grown to approximately 1000 shacks and their source of electricity all these years are from illegal connections taken from street lighting. Since the municipality disconnected their illegal source of electricity there have been a number of protest actions from the squatters who trash the streets.”

While industrial manufacturing investments in KwaDukuza include the Stanger Sappi paper mill and Gledhow sugar mill, plus many other smaller concerns, signs of urban decay are on every street corner.

KDM media liaison officer, Sipho Mkhize said the urban decay was a very emotive topic for council and acknowledged the municipality had noted with grave concern the uncleanliness in some parts of the CBD. He accused the public and tenants in the CBD of blatantly disregarding refuse pick-up times.

“The municipality has introduced various initiatives and innovations in the CBD to ensure a clean environment ranging from providing recycling bins and installing dedicated bins for certain types of refuse,” said Mkhize.

Additional shifts for the refuse cleaning employees to clean the town during the day and at night when there was no trade activity had been introduced.

“This has obviously assisted in many parts of the CBD, however, many still flout bylaws and dump their refuse in the normal litter bins and sometimes on the streets which contribute to storm water drains blocking.”

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