Metro’s waste section runs on half its staff

BUFFALO City Metro has only half the workforce it needs to clean the city.

The metro is short of more than 500 workers to run its solid waste management department, according to an official report.

The vacant 526 posts range from assistant managers to superintendents, supervisors, drivers and street sweepers.

This was revealed in an operational report for August 2016 which was only tabled before council recently by the acting head of department for municipal services, Kholekile Tapile.

The department is responsible for collecting refuse, sweeping the streets, disposing of waste and clearing illegal dump sites.

However, Tapile reported: “The total number of solid waste department positions is 1 042 as per the approved structure, and the department is operating with a total of 516 (excluding administration) staff compliment.

“This therefore means that the department has a vacancy rate of 51%.”

Tapile reported that the “frequent breakdown of fleet for solid waste” was affecting the provision of the service.

There was also a “high rate of illegal dumps and littering, and unavailability of land to establish a transfer (sorting) station”.

According to the report, there are eight assistant manager posts which are not filled, three of them in Mdantsane, three in Bhisho-King William’s Town and two in East London.

Only one of the assistant manager posts was filled, by somone in an acting capacity in East London.

In August, there were 19 superintendent positions vacant. BCM only had eight superintendents, a number of them acting in the positions.

There were 35 supervisor positions vacant, meaning 15 supervisors in the posts were doing the job of 50 supervisors, the report stated.

The report was tabled two months after BCM mayor Xola Pakati announced in October that the new leadership had met with the Eastern Cape MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, Fikile Xasa, to discuss filling the most critical senior management positions.

Yesterday Pakati said BCM had not evaluated the process started to recruit the workers because municipal operations only got going again on Monday.

DA councillor Jan Smit said filling the posts was urgent because existing staff were fighting a losing battle.

“Over the New Year the department tried to clean up after people but within hours the areas were like a pigsty again,” said Smit. — mamelag@