The Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and Environmental Affairs, Makhotso Sotyu, handed over a single waste truck worth R3 million to Masilonyana Local Municipality on Friday 11 November 2022.
Accompanied by the Mayor of Masilonyana, Sotyu said that the handover of the truck forms part of the National Yellow waste and landfill management fleet which the department purchased as a waste management intervention to address waste collection services and illegal dumping for selected municipalities across the country. Sotyu adds that Matjhabeng Local Municipality was one of the beneficiaries to which the department gave the waste truck, earlier this year. She also said the department has come up with a strategy to ensure that the infrastructure is looked after.
“In each and every municipality, we have some youth that we have employed for municipalities to assist municipalities in the District delivery model that has been introduced by the government early this financial year. So one of their responsibilities is to assist the municipalities in making sure that all this infrastructure, especially from different departments are being looked after the way they are supposed to be,” she said.
Sotyu also said that the waste disposal facilities in most municipalities are also experiencing serious non-compliance as waste is not properly managed due to a lack of fleet and equipment. In an attempt to assist the municipalities, the department in 2018/19 engaged with COGTA and National Treasury to enable municipalities to procure waste collection and landfill operation vehicles through the Municipal Infrastructure Grant (MIG).
