New hope for rubbish problems
This week, ratepayers had renewed hope that their refuse problems could soon end.
Residents are furious that the municipality has failed to remove refuse from houses in Carletonville, Fochville and some other areas for at least the past four to six weeks.
“It is mindboggling what is going on with the rubbish removal. It is already a month since the municipality collected the rubbish in Carletonville Ext. 5, especially on Agnew Road and the streets named after antelopes. Last week, the rubbish truck only came late at night. Who is so stupid to leave their wheelie bin outside at that time of the night? This morning, the truck sped down Impala Street and was not seen again. They are supposed to do our route on a Wednesday; what on earth are they now doing here on a Friday? We have to pay R285 each month for refuse removal, and it is not a joke anymore. We see people walking over the railway track to dump their rubbish in the veld daily. Now, they expect us to run after them to take photos so they can be prosecuted for dumping. It is ridiculous, and now we must pay extra for a private company to remove our rubbish,” an upset ratepayer, Mrs Antoinette Schoombie, summed up many others’ frustrations this week.
Residents of areas like Carletonville Extension 9 continually logged calls with the Merafong City Local Municipality’s call centre. Opposition party councillors tried, by all means, to find out what was going on and relay it to their voters. They even let ratepayers know if trucks were running overtime and where they would be operating. The Herald also regularly asked the municipality’s acting marketing and communications manager, Ms Nomonde Mahube, for answers, but she remained tight-lipped.
Many residents started searching for legal ways to get out of paying the municipality for this service.
The only unofficial information from the municipality was that there were problems with their fleet of refuse removal trucks.
By Tuesday afternoon, a resident, Ms Judy Rossouw, posted a photo of a brand-new rubbish removal truck she saw in Ward 16. Later, Mahube responded for the first time in weeks.
“The municipality has started receiving waste compactor trucks from the appointed panel of service providers to assist in addressing the challenges of waste refuse removal,” she said.
By printing time, however, it was still unclear whether there was an improvement in the refuse removal. The municipality did not shed light on when it would remove the backlog.
