The City of Ekurhuleni is enhancing its waste removal functions to eradicate backlogs.
This is according to Nhlanhla Cebekhulu, spokesperson for the metro.
“The City has bought an additional 23 waste removal trucks that will be delivered in November to complement the fleet.
“The City will also deploy vehicle tracking technology across the whole fleet to constantly monitor it for functionality, location, driving patterns to ensure its optimal use. Vehicles and personnel will be rerouted to areas in need of more resources whenever backlogs accumulate in any specific areas.”
He said working with the organised labour, the City will review roles and responsibilities of affected personnel to enhance capacity.
“The standby mechanics will be activated to reduce the impact of vehicle breakdowns, and two-way radio communication technology will be used among relevant officials to reduce the length of response time to complaints, vehicle breakdowns and requests for rerouting of vehicles.
“Waste removal staff will be re-assigned to different teams whenever they are affected by breakdowns instead of working in depots, to minimize backlogs and the need for overtime work.
MMC for Environment and Waste Management, Cllr Khosi Mabaso said: “We are putting all measures and resources in place to rid ourselves of the persistent waste removal challenges, and we are confident that the measures we have put in place will be adequate to result in uninterrupted services.
The services of private waste removers have been sought through an open bidding, and the Supply Chain Management process in relation thereto will be concluded in November.
He said a Joint Operations Centre that sits bi-weekly has been established to monitor progress and implementation of the recovery and turnaround plan, whilst fast-tracking inter-departmental communication for quicker response time to bottlenecks.
