Ekurhuleni’s Environmental Resource & Waste Management Department failing residents

by Cllr. Jill Humphreys — DA Member of the Environment, Resource and Waste Management in Ekurhuleni

Date: 23 April 2021

Release: Immediate

Type: Media statement

The City of Ekurhuleni (CoE)’s Environmental Resource and Waste Management Department under MMC, Ald Khosi Mabaso, is in a dire state with multiple service delivery failures, and a deterioration of the City’s natural resources.

Following Ald Mabaso’s mismanagement and poor planning, the Department is no longer able to meet even the bare minimum conditions of its mandated functions, resulting in the near-collapse of service delivery in the ANC Coalition-led* Metro.

The most glaring issue has been the steady decline in waste management services. Some of the City’s landfill sites have been closed due to contractual mismanagement creating massive waste collection backlogs across the City. The City’s Fleet Management Department is currently not repairing or renewing licenses on City-owned vehicles due to the Department running out of money. Vehicles are unable to operate due to lack of maintenance and in many cases, no license! This has compounded the dysfunction and further disabled the Department.

The Springs waste depot is an example of how operations have all but come to a standstill given the waste backlogs as a result of non-operational waste vehicles.

Many of the City’s transfer stations and disposal sites are suffering as a result, as they lack the capacity to process waste from residents. In some cases, disposal sites are unsupervised and run by gangs extracting bribes from residents. It is unsurprising that in some areas, such as Lindelani, waste continues to pile up creating a serious health hazard for residents due to non-collection.

While the City pays lip service to the importance of the green economy, there is no recycling plan in place, meaning that the City’s waste management plan is completely unsustainable. The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Ekurhuleni considers this a missed opportunity given the potential for economic development and job creation in the recycling industry.

The ANC Coalition-led* Metro has shown similar neglect of its facilities. One only has to look at the lack of grass cutting in parks and the vandalism of cemeteries; rendering many of them unusable and dangerous. Employees of the Parks Department have not even been provided with adequate Personal Protective Equipment, or PPE, meaning they are only able to conduct the bare minimum when it comes to clearing and grass cutting. As a result, the City’s parks, verges and traffic islands resemble jungles. In some instances, residents have taken action into their own hands and cut the grass themselves. While not condoned, such is the desperation that residents face at the complete breakdown in service delivery.

Sadly, Ekurhuleni’s natural resources have not escaped the neglect of the Department as the Shothole Borer beetle continues to wreak havoc on the City’s trees with no plan to protect them. Our water bodies are brimming with hyacinth — a plant that indicates a high amount of sewage content in water bodies due to the deterioration of the City’s sewerage infrastructure causing leaks and spills.

The decimation of our natural resources and the mismanagement of the Parks and Waste Department has led to a breakdown in an essential component of service delivery. The ANC and their coalition partners* urgently need to get their house in order before it’s too late.

The DA will continue to do oversight and expose the deep underlying systematic problems facing the Department and the failure of the political leadership. The Party is engaging with private experts and companies and solutions and mitigation on all these aspects while continuing to be solutions-driven for the betterment of our communities in the face of a failing ANC-Coalition administration

• Coalition Partners: African Independent Congress (AIC), Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), Patriotic Alliance (PA) and Independent Ratepayers Association of South Africa (IRASA)

Cllr. Jill Humphreys

DA Member of the Environment Resource and Waste Management in Ekurhuleni