Problems at the Rooipoort municipal rubbish dump are still far from being sorted out.
The Carletonville Herald reported on the conditions at this, the only official landfill site in the area, last year. Inspectors
of the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) had served the municipality with an official notice that it was
in violation of the National Environmental Management Act (Nema No. 107 of 1998).
DEA set out a strict timeline according to which changes had to be made at the facility. Merafong was given 120
days to appoint a specialist to start monitoring effluent at the site, for instance.
If it failed to do so, the municipal accounting officer, in this case, the acting municipal manager, Mr Langa
Thibini, could be found guilty and fined up to R10 000 000 or sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, or both.
The municipality opted to sort out the matter by allocating R10 000 000 for this purpose and to once again
start paying the company Mykatrade 210 cc to rehabilitate the site. This contractor used to manage the site
but stopped working when it was not paid.
The latest developments were discussed at the council meeting. According to the municipality, various goals
had been achieved by the end of January this year. These included the successful establishment of a site, cleaning
and fixing the plumbing of buildings, the deployment of security, the cleaning and clearing of the illegal
dumps on the access road and sorting out the entrance area.
Other issues that were also attended to included clearing the weighbridge and instructing the contractor
to recommission it, clearing the wet cells and recompacting them with concrete material that had been disposed
of, stabilising the working phase, preparing another cell, clearing zone 2 at the site and stockpiling.
A meeting was also held with the reclaimers to negotiate resettlement and update the database, stockpiling
cover material and looking after the internal access roads.
A follow-up audit was also done on 10 February.
When the Herald visited the site with a community leader, Mr Vusi Mcunana last week, however, it was
clear that all was not as it should be at the site.
The toilets were out of order and the structure for the security guards was only a shell, its windows had been
stolen. There was only one man in civilian clothing checking out the vehicles that had come in.
The weighbridge was rusted and overgrown and far from being back in commission. The building behind it
had been so badly vandalised that it could not be used.
Roads within the dumping site were in extremely poor condition and another building near the entrance had
been almost completely stripped.