Complaints stream in over abrupt service delivery halt
“Waste removal is being severely hampered and rubbish is piling up in the streets.”
Complaints about the abrupt halt in service delivery came streaming in after irked residents dumped their waste outside the metro’s locked garden dumping site in Dorandia, north of Pretoria.
“The complaints have been around the closure of the green dump due to the strike and also from residents living in that street having to see this mess every day,” former ward councillor and Democratic Alliance (DA) public representative Yolanda Duvenhage said.
The piled-up waste is spilling into Daan De Wet Nel Drive.
Video:
@CityTshwane just before you get to Toyota Pretoria North…. Hope you'll be responsible for accidents, coming as a results of this littering pic.twitter.com/qwYev1twZ3
— OKSI® (@BenniGeeGas) August 4, 2020
Residents were said to have dumped their waste outside the locked dumping site after waste removers failed to collect it last week due to an ongoing dispute between the Tshwane metro and its workers.
To add insult to injury, other residents were said to have been left without power for two weeks.
Earlier this week pensioner Bets van Vuuren, who was recovering from Covid-19 and needed oxygen, said she had been without power for 10 days.
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“I’ve got the best neighbour in the country because he gave me an extension to plug in my appliances and oxygen over the wall.”
Van Vuuren said the private electricians she had called in to her house confirmed the fault was in the breaker which was hanging from a metropole.
“It looks like sabotage,” she said.
Meanwhile, Duvenhage had also received several other service delivery related complaints.
“There are also complaints about sewage pushing up into yards and into swimming pools; water leaks not being fixed and causing water outages for days at a time,” she said.
On Tuesday, DA mayoral hopeful candidate Randall Williams said the labour unrest, which was in its third week, had caused “massive” backlogs in service delivery throughout the city.
“Waste removal is being severely hampered and rubbish is piling up in the streets. Garden refuse sites also remain closed, resulting in illegal dumping along roads leading to these sites,” he said.
He added that there was still uncertainty about when they would reopen “as the situation grows worse”.
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“The waste removal situation will become a major health hazard if it persists.”
Williams said that while residents in some areas were utilising private waste removal companies, they were incurring additional costs “over and above what they are paying the city for the removal service they are not getting”.
“Many contractors are unable to work due to intimidation as a result of the ongoing labour unrest.”
Speaking to Rekord on Wednesday, Tshwane head administrator Mpho Nawa said it was “unfortunate they [the workers] took this route”.
He added that they were trying to solve the problem through ongoing negotiations with the labour force.
“We’re doing our best,” Nawa said.
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