MOKOPANE – The Mogalakwena Municipality faced embarrassment after it was revealed that the local landfill meets only 40% of the required standards.

This revelation follows AfriForum’s audit of 189 landfills across South Africa to assess the current state of municipal and private landfills.

The annual audit aims to determine whether these landfills meet the necessary environmental, health, and safety requirements for responsible waste management.

Shockingly, 85.8% of landfills failed this year’s audit, with the situation in Limpopo appearing even worse than the national average.

Hendrik Kotze, AfriForum’s provincial coordinator, explained that a landfill must meet at least 80% of the audit requirements to pass.

However, only one of the 14 landfills audited in Limpopo met the minimum legal requirements, and Mogalakwena was not among them.

Kotze added that this is a decline from last year’s performance.

Kotze described the Mogalakwena landfill as being in a terrible state.

“A general issue we noticed during this audit is that there are little to no resources available to manage waste sites efficiently. However, the situation at this landfill can largely be attributed to the municipality’s serious shortcomings in their waste management systems and the staff responsible for them.”

AfriForum is planning a meeting with Dr Dion George, the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and Environment (DFFE), to present the findings of the landfill audit report and to request a formal investigation into the non-compliant municipality.

“AfriForum believes that South Africans’ constitutional rights, including the right to a clean and healthy environment, are being violated by poor landfill management. The DFFE must urgently hold these municipalities accountable,” Kotze said.

Mogalakwena divisional head of communications, Malesela Selokela, could not immediately provide comment on the matter.