Residents living in the smaller side streets of Central complain that they have been waiting for months for municipal waste-removal trucks to rumble down their streets.
The claims have surfaced a week after the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality agreed to pay a total of R44m in a bid to end a protracted strike over long-service back pay for nearly 3,000 employees.
Residents living behind the Port Elizabeth High Court in streets such as Cuyler, Surbiton, Fort and Tickenham as well as Gordon, Annerley and Athol Fugard terraces, said municipal workers had stopped collecting rubbish in the side streets at least a month before the recent strike.
They said the piles of rubbish on street corners and scattered around municipal blue bins in the area were evidence of this.
Municipal spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki denied the claim after checking with with both street-cleaning and refuse-collection supervisors.
“There has not been any noncollection of waste in the aforementioned streets before the strike.
“Collections [are] done in all the streets of Central. In some instances, residents do not place their refuse [out] at the time they are supposed to,” Mniki said.
But Beverly Heights resident Godwin Phatwa said while the municipality did do weekly collections in the area, this was only done along main roads.
“And with people dumping almost daily, it takes less than a week for it to pile up.
“We area struggling more and more with rats.”
Nerina Flats resident Tania Vermeulen said the corner of Cuyler Street and Gordon Terrace was among the most popular dumping sites in the area.
“I think the municipality must either provide, or force flat owners to provide, more – or bigger – bins for designated dumping within their premises,” Vermeulen said.
Mayoral committee member for public health Lance Grootboom said businesses in the area were also to blame because they were reluctant to pay for a waste trade contract.
“All businesses, including flats, townhouses, restaurants, coffee shops and food-handling premises are required to enter into a refuse collection agreement by signing a trade contract with either the NMBM or a private refuse-collection firm.
“Due to poor town planning practices, most businesses have insufficient storage space to keep their refuse prior to collection,” he said.
However, he conceded that the lack of municipal employees had worsened the problem.
“The Central area has dedicated street-sweeping routes.
“Unfortunately, due to non-filling of vacancies there is only one permanently employed street sweeper with the balance being recruited via the Extended Public Works Programme,” Grootboom said.