Buffalo City Metro has roped in private companies to clean its filthy streets, but some East London residents have been cleaning up after them as they have left rubbish scattered on the streets.
Residents expressed mixed reactions to the metro’s clean-up intervention as refuse trucks were seen battling to clean the city’s dirty streets on Sunday.
The cleanup started on Saturday after city bosses hit the panic button amid an illegal strike by South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu)-affiliated workers.
The workers are demanding a R100,000 payout to each BCM worker this month following the metro’s failure to fully implement the job evaluation process, which was scheduled to start last year.
Some residents complained of incompetency from the hired refuse trucks. Quigney resident Ashraf Dawjee said: “We are paying huge rates here but the municipality is failing us. These people they have hired are doing a bad job as they only take the black bags and leave everything else scattered on the streets. There are vagrants who tear up these plastic bags and leave our streets dirty but when these trucks come here they also leave everything behind.”
A truck with Matjhabeng municipality branding – which is in the Free State – was seen removing refuse around Quigney on Sunday.
Zakia Dawjee said they were concerned for their children’s health.
“We have children here who are exposed to all sorts of filth on their way to school. They are exposed to all sorts of waste...