Brakpan’s refuse problems are rooted in mismanagement, says DA

The real reason behind the shoddy refuse removal service in Brakpan is the fact that there are less than half the number of trucks needed to do the job.

This is according to the Democratic Alliance, who believe that the continuous chaos around rubbish collection in Brakpan is entirely due to a collapsing administration, bad planning and a lack of integrated management between departments.

The DA is also addressing numerous reports from residents who are being pressurised into paying bribes in the form of cold drinks, food or cash, to the staff manning the trucks.

Read: Refuse collector has some nerve

Officials who must actually deal with the fall-out and the symptoms of the root cause throughout Ekurhuleni are unfairly feeling the heat from angry residents and their hugely frustrated DA ward councillors.

“In fact, if the powers-that-be implemented a proper management system and enforced it, managers on lower rungs would be empowered to ensure proper service delivery,” said the DA’s Shauné le Roux and Shelley Loe, councillors in the Tsakane-Brakpan Constituency.

“The situation comes down to the fact that four out of the six vehicles used to remove refuse in Brakpan are currently out of operation.

“Foresight, proper procedures, available resources and planning would have avoided this increasingly desperate situation.

“The matter is made worse by the overtime that council is forced to pay its staff to get refuse removed over the weekends, due to the fact that the two available vehicles are overstretched on the scheduled week days.”

Le Roux and Loe stated that Solid Waste division is already 200 per cent over its allocated budget for overtime work.

“In all respects, Brakpan ratepayers are on the losing end,” they said.

“They are paying for council’s mistakes, over and over again.

“Many residents are regularly taking their own bags to council dumps, while still paying for this service on their municipal accounts, to avoid the stench, litter and health hazard caused by uncollected garbage.

“The Brakpan fleet is very old, although recently equipped with specialised mechanisms to empty the bins into the trucks.

Read: What a lot of rubbish

“Depot maintenance on this specialised equipment cannot be done, neither are there maintenance plans on the actual vehicles which means that they are booked in to service providers for repair when they break down, which can take weeks to complete, if the parts are readily available.

“There is no spare capacity in the department to hire replacement vehicles due to expired tenders.

“In order to award new tenders, a six-month process must be embarked upon, which was not done in the case of Brakpan.

“Trucks are borrowed from other customer care centres, like Benoni, from time to time, but this obviously has a domino effect, causing backlogs in service delivery for both areas. ”

Le Roux and Loe will be bringing a motion to council, calling for all council refuse removers to wear name tags, in order for residents to be able to identify those workers who are asking for bribes or gifts of food and drinks, and to report them along with the registration number of their refuse vehicle, to their respective councillors or directly to council.

Also read: Metro comments on erratic refuse removal

DA: New refuse removal system is a “monumental disaster”

Videos and photos: Residents trash municipality

More rubbish dumped at council