Ethekwini cleans Frasers

To the surprise of Frasers residents, five different departments from Ethekwini Municipality arrived at the informal settlement at 9am on Friday, June 19 to survey the extent of the sanitation problem in the area and to begin clearing the mountains of garbage lining the dusty streets.

Durban Solid Waste (DSW) and the departments of Roads, Parks, Health and Water and Sanitation flocked to Frasers in an effort to relieve residents of their low standard of living.

With no bins or skips to collect rubbish produced by residents of the settlement, no drainage provisions, few water and ablution facilities and the constant headache of illegal dumping, the settlement has become the hidden unofficial landfill site of the area.

Friday’s assessment and litter clean-up was the first of Ethekwini’s two day initiative to ease the living conditions of residents in Frasers and comes shortly after the severity of the health and environmental problem in the settlement was first investigated by the Courier three weeks ago.

One resident told the Courier that no municipal departments have shown up to address and resolve the poor living conditions in the 42 years he has lived there. Residents claimed their pressure on the municipality made them come, while Ethekwini said that they were there of their own accord.

All department representatives there said that councillor Nompumelelo Mabaso had no involvement whatsoever in the commissioning of this health assessment and clean-up and as far as any of them are aware, thought that she did not even know about it.

“The condition of this place is terrible and the problems affecting residents desperately need to be solved,” said Ramu Govender of Ethekwini Parks department.

A team of litter collectors from DSW filled bag after bag of half decaying plastic bottles, wrappers and containers for removal to landfill.

“The standard of living in this settlement is deplorable and no human being should have to live like this,” said Sanjay Erra, senior environmental health practitioner in the health department.

“Another problem with service delivery in areas like this is that some individuals falsely represent themselves as being in official positions at various municipal departments,” said Erra. He said this was of concern because their agenda was unknown and residents no longer knew who to trust in the municipality.