Refuse service woes

Promised collections fail to materialise AFTER an announcement that the municipality’s waste management subdirectorate would collect rubbish weekly in all Nelson Mandela Bay wards, the process got off to a slow start last week.

In some areas of Uitenhage and Despatch, the streets were lined with piles of green and black refuse bags. Municipal spokesman Mthubanzi Mniki said the promise to collect refuse in all areas was made by mayor Danny Jordaan when he took office in May. Some areas of Uitenhage, Despatch, Khayamnandi, Joe Slovo, Greenfields and Izinyoka were included in the programme. The collection was to start at 6am on Monday last week. Annelene Bacckett, 31, of Khayamnandi, said residents put their rubbish bags out on Monday but no one had come to collect them. “We never saw any municipal truck in our area,” she said.

“The rubbish is piling on the streets and soon it will be scattered by dogs.” In Hofplein Street in Despatch, a resident, who refused to give his name, said his family had taken the rubbish bags out on Tuesday – the day they should have been collected – but had to take them back in when the truck failed to arrive. “People appreciated the fact that refuse would be collected on a weekly basis but, in the first week, we are getting this,” the man said. Nomonde Mthetho, 43, of Strelizia Park in Uitenhage, said she had also taken her rubbish bag out on Tuesday before she left for work and it was still there when she returned. In December, the municipality launched its R16-million service delivery trucks and ambassadors. Last week, the Bay’s public health portfolio chairman, Joy Seale, said the municipality could not win the battle of cleaning the city alone. “Now that we have covered the whole city in terms of collection, it is up to our people to make sure they cooperate with our refuse collection officials,” she said. Mniki advised people to notify the municipality if refuse was not being collected in their areas.