‘Political interference, mismanagement’ – Inside Ekurhuleni’s deepening waste crisis

At the core of the City of Ekurhuleni’s waste management crisis – with strewn piles of uncollected rubbish becoming a usual sight in most townships and towns – is political interference, mismanagement and lack of systems, according to former executive mayor Tania Campbell.

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As residents continue to be plagued by intermittent stoppages of rubbish collection by a service provider, city spokesperson Zweli Dlamini has downplayed the magnitude of the glitch.

“The City of Ekurhuleni has deployed additional resources to deal with waste removal backlogs following the withdrawal of a service provider recently,” he said.

“The service provider withdrew due to a misunderstanding around payment.”

Contractor Thabang Moeng would not confirm a standoff between his company and Ekurhuleni, merely saying: “The City of Ekurhuleni is a very important and valuable client to us.

“We are not at liberty to disclose contractual terms with them to a third party.” Campbell said Ekurhuleni tenders, which included waste management, were fraught with irregularities.

“While waste management is crucial for Ekurhuleni, one of the biggest challenges is that of nonpayment of contractors and subcontractors. If they are not being paid, they will not be able to render services.

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“Compounding matters is the issue of political interference. When I was voted out of office, barely two weeks later, there was a R2 billion security tender that went through.

“How on earth do you do that within two weeks of a new government being sworn in?

“There are processes a tender has to go through, with certain equities that have to be followed.

“If a political party has an interest within a certain contractor, they will push for it to get the tender.

“The contractor has to subcontract because Ekurhuleni is a huge city.”

Offering one contract to cover a huge area “is unworkable”.

“When we dealt with mini-dump sites was when we empowered small community-based companies because they are easier to handle than big dump areas,” she said.

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“You have to bring those small companies into your smaller areas like Tembisa. “And we managed very well with those contractors.

“The other biggest problem in Ekurhuleni is that it is not even paying the smaller contractors because money is not there anymore,” said Campbell.

She said finance MMC Nkululeko Dunga was “failing to table before council the AG [auditor-general] report on the state of Ekurhuleni finances”.

Ekurhuleni had “no good governance or separation of powers”. “You walk into an administration which is the employment agency of a political party and you also find heads of departments who are politically appointed,” she said.

“It all becomes frustrating – taking you 10 times longer to get programmes off the ground – due to people who do not want to work. You see people being given bonuses because they are politically appointed.

“Professionals shy away from working for government because they find it too politicised,” said Campbell.

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Brandon Pretorius, who served under Campbell as MMC for environment and waste management, warned of the collapse in the department being “imminent because the city cannot pay service providers”.

“They appoint one service provider to do most of the work and once the city does not pay for services, then there is a complete collapse,” said Pretorius.

“Due to the appointment process not being made more transparent, you have service providers linked to a political party.

“The biggest problem is that the City of Ekurhuleni has a hybrid system, with suburban areas being serviced by internal waste removal trucks and townships serviced by external service providers.

“Internal vehicles are now unavailable.”