Estella Naicker
ABAQULUSI municipality sent its part-time ‘fire-fighters’ on a fool’s errand last week when the dumpsite caught fire again.
As toxic smoke spewed from, what former Vryheid Herald editor, John Carnegie, aptly described as, “a festering ulcer on the body of AbaQulusi municipality’s service delivery record,” the municipality wasted time, fuel, and Water! to try to douse the effects of years of mismanagement.
Last Wednesday, the part-time fire-fighters were still battling to put out a fire that had started at the Vryheid dump-site the previous Sunday.
The fire-fighters, who are still waiting to find out if they will be permanently appointed at the AbaQulusi municipality’s Fire Department, rushed back and forth to the fetch water from community collection points in the CBD, which they were using to try to put out the fire at the dump site.
While the fire-fighters plodded tirelessly and resolutely, knee-deep in piles of rubbish until late Wednesday afternoon, many felt that they were sent on a task that had no hope of success.
Even the fire-fighters agreed that the recurring clouds of toxic smoke poisoning residents every time the dumpsite catches fire, needs to be addressed by properly managing the dumpsite, but they said, “We are just doing the best we can.”
Chairman of AfriForum, André van der Walt, urged AbaQulusi management to, “do the correct thing.”
“The only solution to this problem is for the municipality to manage the dumpsite correctly. It is not supposed to be burning at all if it is managed correctly. They know that they must dig big trenches, compact it, put soil over it and compact it again. The fire-fighters are wasting their time. You will never kill that fire with water. They are wasting water!” he said.
Responses from the AbaQulusi municipality to the Vryheid Herald’s constant requests for information regarding the dumpsite have proven time and again to be nothing but smoke and mirrors.
