Mogoditshane-Thamaga grapples with waste collection
Mogoditshane-Thamaga District Council is failing to keep up with waste collection in its jurisdiction due to lack of funds.
The council Senior Assistant Secretary Losika Mosarwa revealed that the council has run out of funds and has overspent its allocated budget for waste collection. The problem is expected to persist for some time as the council does not have funds to contract private companies to collect waste. He said their district is different from other areas.
“We have a contractor who was collecting waste in Mogoditshane but came back to us to complain that we are cheating on him with the rates. This was because the rates were per household. But since we all know that most households are multi-residential where there are more than one family, then the contractor wanted the fees to be revised.
“So, we have to unbundle it and engage several contractors. Things did not improve because we had a budget of P4 million but we have already used P15 million under the current financial year,” Mosarwa said.
The situation has now been worsened by the fact that some of the contracts expired in October last year and could not be renewed due to lack of funds. According to Mosarwa, it was not financially prudent to renew the contracts.
He revealed that other contracts will be ending next month in February. Mosarwa pointed out that due to lack of funds he had at some point made a request to private companies to reduce their rates and they acceded by slashing their rates by 25 percent. This however did not arrest the situation as expenditure still shot up.
Mosarwa told a Kgotla meeting in Mogoditshane that the council currently has only four compact trucks that are used for waste collection. He said their hands are tied due to lack of funds.
“You will continue to be angry with us as far as waste management is concerned because the situation will continue until we have funds. However, we are working on something administratively. We also have a problem with protective clothing, there is shortage,” Mosarwa said.
During last year’s full council meeting, Council Chairman Dux Mafoko indicated that the level of collection of residential waste indicates that 10 347 out of 11 727, that is, 82 per cent clients received waste collection service.
A total of 8 476 out of 10 347 were serviced according to the service standard. There were three areas outsourced to use donkey carts, being Gakgatla, Kubung and Ramaphatle. There were 14/14 areas that are outsourced and contractors were engaged in waste collection.