“Dissolve Emfuleni Council” : Action SA
The municipality (ELM) has advised residents to dispose of their household waste themselves.
SEDIBENG. – Following new developments this week that the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) is slowly not being able to collect household waste, ActionSA has once again called for the coalition council to be dissolved.
The ELM announced on Monday that it has not been able to collect household waste across the municipality as scheduled because its Waste Department has a limited number of rear-end loader compactor trucks in operation and that this has affected service delivery “severely”, and advised residents to dispose of it themselves.
It further reported that its Waste Department is now left with five (5) operational compactor trucks and several broken-down trucks that cannot be repaired due to their age. Furthermore, the attachment of its bank account and nine (9) compactor trucks by the Sherriff of the Court last December is said to have contributed to the current situation.
The municipality said that it required thirty-eight (38) trucks to service all communities as per its daily waste collection schedule. In an attempt to continue with the service, the ELM had been using hired trucks, to supplement the five, however, this has stopped due to the Municipal Finance Management processes.
ActionSA Emfuleni Chairperson, Mothobi Nqhatsetseng said that the complete breakdown of waste collection in the ELM is yet another reason why ActionSA is calling for the ELM council to be dissolved because service delivery in the area is virtually non-existent due to mismanagement by the ANC-led “coalition of doom”.
ActionSA Gauteng Provincial Chairperson, Bongani Baloyi, had already written to the Gauteng Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) MEC, Mzi Khumalo, last year December requesting that the Emfuleni Municipal Council be dissolved and an administrator is appointed.
Nqhatsetseng said that an administrator would help to address governance failures in the short term while long-term solutions to the Emfuleni municipality are found.
“The coalition of doom in Emfuleni Local Municipality – headed by the ANC – has for years struggled to deliver the most basic services, such as electricity and water provision, while its finances continued to deteriorate. The municipality has already been under administration since 2018 for its ballooning irregular expenditure bill of over R1 billion, but the intervention has yielded little results and instead, service delivery continued to decline.”
He added that for over three years, the Gauteng Provincial Government has failed to address the “deeply concerning situation” at the municipality, and that is why drastic action has to be taken to turn the situation around.
“ Action SA is committed to good governance that sees quality services being delivered to all the residents,” he said.
