Unpacking latest development in Ekurhuleni’s erratic grass-cutting, landfill sites services

You may have noticed the awful appearance of the city’s green spaces, which have many residents questioning the efficiency of the metro’s parks division in dealing with overgrown grass and trees.

Amid the public outcry over the city’s ‘failure’ to keep up with overgrown grass and poorly maintained landfill sites, this publication reached out to the metro for a complete rundown of the situation, regarding concerns about the current state of service delivery in the department and requested information on what is being done to improve the increasingly erratic services.

Here is a complete rundown of the situation:
Responding to these concerns, the acting head of the Department for Environmental Resources and Waste Management Phakamile Mbengashe acknowledged that city management was equally concerned about overgrown public green areas and other maintenance-related issues. He expressed optimism of a turning point on the horizon, as he explained that a lot had been done to deal with the shortcomings.

According to Mbengashe, there is ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ as the city has recently formed a task team to address the identified challenges, from lack of equipment to contractual challenges, and, with the limited resources, dealing with complaints about unkempt public spaces as quickly as possible.

When asked about the alleged dereliction of duty, scandalous use of municipal equipment and unwarranted equipment breakdown, Mpengashe pointed out that there is an investigation underway about the equipment breakdown and alleged mismanagement of council equipment.

Grass-cutting
This publication understands that a management vacuum was created in June last year when the divisional head for parks and cemeteries in charge of grass-cutting was suspended for lack of delivery.
However, the city has appointed an acting HOD to oversee the work of the department, and as far as grass-cutting is concerned, the city management has recently established the grass-cutting task team, which is sorely focused on grass-cutting.

“We have acknowledged that some of our equipment is damaged and we might have a shortage of equipment, but we were of the view that despite the shortage, we shouldn’t stop operations. So, with the available resources grass cutting is currently underway in the city and it started in earnest in January.

“What the task team has done was to conduct an audit of all the equipment we have, and then assembled super teams within the different regions to be specially equipped for deployment to the various targeted overgrown green spaces in their areas.
“We have since the formation of the teams cut grass in many areas including public spaces in Benoni, Edenvale, Springs, Impala Park, Mooifontein Cemetery in Kempton Park and other areas.
“For now, we are focusing on areas where more people congregate, and these include clinics, libraries, municipal offices, cemeteries, and main entrances to our various neighbourhoods.”

Contractors
Responding to questions about speculations that the parks department seemed doomed to failure because the city failed to appoint contractors in time to help internal staff tackle overgrown areas, the city confirmed that an advert for a grass-cutting contract is ready to be advertised and would be out soonest.

Mbengashe, however, explained that these processes require at least two months to be finalised.
“As per the regulation, the tender must be advertised for 30 days, and the adjudication processes take about 30 days. So, we are hoping to have the contractors appointed at least by the end of March if everything goes well.

“With the task team and the contractors, we will be able to make impressive strides in having everything stabilised. So residents can expect to see even more improvement by mid-March.”

Mbengashe pointed out that with the coming city’s adjustments budget for 2023/24 financial year, they are planning to use a substantial chunk of their budget to consolidate the department’s equipment to help fast-track maintenance of public spaces.
“As public servants, we do want to apologise for the delay, and thank the public for their patience.”

Update on landfill management
Mbengashe pointed out that the city now boasts four operational landfill sites following the reopening of Simmer and Jack on January 22, months after it caught fire last year.

He explained that during the period after it caught fire last year, the institution in charge of compliance, the Gauteng Department of Agriculture, Rural Development and Environment (GDARDE), found that because of the fire, the site was not a safe environment.
As a result, the site was closed to allow the metro to do what was required to ensure the facility complies with environmental laws.

“The reopening of the site will help to ease the pressure on the other sites.”
He added that the prospects of reopening the fifth site by the end of February are high.
Operational sites are Weltevreden, Platkop, Rooikraal and Simmer and Jack. The metro had a machine breakdown at one of these sights but that was expected to be resolved within a week.
“When it comes to Rietfontein landfill, a new contractor was appointed late last year. However, there were a few reservations with supply chain and they were in negotiations about rates and other issues.
“The good news is that the negotiations have been finalised and the contractors have 30 days to carry out site establishment. And the commitment we are looking at is that by March the site should be fully operational.

“In December, the MMC had met with the community Kwa-Thema which staged protests over their concerns about the state of the facility, and they had agreed that all their demands in terms of safety and cleaning up the space had been met.”

Delayed payment to contractors
Clarifying the issue of payments, Mbengashe stated that while the city strives to pay its service providers at least within a reasonable period, in the tender document there is a clause in terms of the requirement that talks about financial viability.

“It says the contractor must have financial viability which serves as a buffer against delayed payment, and prevent a situation where they lack the resources to fulfil their contractual obligations.
“The viability is usually a three months buffer. For instance, financial viability for landfill management tender says you must have a financial viability of about R2m – because the municipality operates of revenue which we get from the ratepayers, and there would be instances where we are unable to pay you on a particular month.

“Now, because of our financial situation many of our companies have reached their three-month buffer, but what we do to keep them sustainable is that there will be a portion of payments made, it might not be in full payment but we do pay them, and the outstanding amount will eventually be paid.

“There is always communication between our finance department and the contractors to alert them if there is a particular month that they are not going to get full payment due to financial constraints, as a result of being unable to reach revenue targets – because of ratepayers who were unable to pay for various reasons.

“From our side, there is an expectation that you should at least be able to run for three months without full pay because this is something we discuss upfront when you apply for the contract that you need to be financial viability of so much
“What we have discovered is that the biggest challenge for our contractors at landfill sites is usually diesel, which is part of their costs.”

More rubbish skip bins
About mini dump sites, Mbengashe said he had recently carried out oversight visits and there were not many major issues found, except for the need to add more skip bins to avoid widespread dumping of waste on unauthorised sections of the facilities.

“In some instances, you find that the bins are full, and when someone comes with waste they don’t say let me wait for the truck to come back with an empty bin to dump. Instead, they just dump there and that creates some problems.”
Planning
Mbengashe concurred that strong leadership and accountability are required for the department to bring quality services.
He stated that the council wanted to employ a HOD for waste last year, but after receiving the offer, the candidate declined.

“It took us back a few steps. We were hoping that by the end of last year, we would have the HOD, who will hit the ground running and be accountable for everything that is happening. The truth is, leadership in a department plays a very important role.”

Also Read: Ekurhuleni’s grass-cutting woes