eMBALENHLE – Residents are now forced to pay for private waste collectors due to the municipal waste collection backlog.
They are paying about R200 every time that they want their waste removed from their homes.
They said what worry them, is that the municipality is charging them for waste collection while they do not deliver the service.
Residents said this has been going on for months and that they are at risk of catching diseases.
Mr Bheki Kubheka, acting chief of staff, said Govan Mbeki Municipality takes full responsibility and apologised to the community for their continuous challenge in waste collection.
“The municipality has not fully recovered from the catastrophe of loss of its reliable waste collection fleet during the public violence of 16 October 2017 that saw the five compactor trucks that were servicing the area of eMbalenhle go up in flame, and with that being said, the municipality remains fully responsible for the waste collection services.
“In order to address the backlog and ensure that we collect waste according to schedule as a short term plan, we continue with collecting waste according to schedule and implement overtime through the sharing of resources from other regions, although we continue to experience unfortunate breakdowns.
“As a long term intervention, we have budgeted to procure three compactor trucks with a higher waste collection volume. The procurement process has been started in line with the Supply Chain Management Regulations.
“We sincerely apologize for this situation and we want to assure our community that we are committed to bring the situation back to normal.”
Also read:
https://www.citizen.co.za/ridge-times/100043/breaking-news-embalenhle-protesters-torch-municipal-building-trucks/
