Service Delivery

Ekurhuleni Enhances Waste Removal Capacity

 The City is enhancing its waste removal functions to eradicate backlogs, and particularly in Kempton Park were there has been persistent waste removal backlogs due to the allocated fleet size and higher proportion of deployed vehicles being booked for repairs.

A plan has been developed to turn around the situation and deliver waste removal services of a standard expected by our customers. Twenty-three waste removal trucks have been purchased and will be delivered in November to complement the existing fleet. Furthermore, all waste removal trucks servicing Kempton Park that are in the workshop for repairs will be repaired by 30 September.

Vehicle tracking in the fleet has been installed to constantly monitor for functionality, location, and driving patterns to ensure optimal use. Vehicles and personnel will be rerouted to areas in need of more resources whenever backlogs accumulate in any specific areas.

Working with the organized labour, the City will review roles and responsibilities of affected personnel to enhance capacity. Standby mechanics will assist in reducing the impact of vehicle breakdowns, and two-way radio communication will be used among relevant officials to reduce the length of response time to complaints, vehicle breakdown and requests for rerouting of vehicles.

Waste removal staff will be re-assigned to different teams whenever they are affected by breakdowns.

“We are putting all measures and resources in place to rid ourselves of the persistent waste removal challenges, and we are confident that the measures we have put in place will be adequate to result in uninterrupted services,” said MMC for Waste and Environmental Services, Cllr Khosi Mabaso.

The services of private contractors have been sought through an open bidding process of the Supply Chain Management process and is set to be completed in November. In the meantime, an already existing contract in place will be extended to cover Kempton Park as and when the need arises.

A Joint Operations Centre sits bi-weekly to monitor progress and implementation of the recovery and turnaround plan, whilst fast-tracking inter-departmental communication for quicker response time to bottlenecks.