Shongweni landfill meeting ends in chaos
A MEETING of the Shongweni landfill monitoring committee turned into a screaming match, with most residents leaving frustrated. The meeting was held at the Durban Shongweni Club on Wednesday evening and was attended by more than 300 community members, some from as far as Kwandengezi.
The finalisation of the terms of reference for the committee as well as election of its chairperson and deputy were on the agenda, but none of this took place.
Facilitator Pravin Amar and Department of Environmental Affair’s deputy director-general for chemical and waste management, Mark Gordon, spent two hours trying to control the crowd.
Most of the group left, but some remained, repeatedly drowning out speakers they did not agree with.
A group shouted, “We have a right to breathe clean air!” whenever Thabiso Taaka of Enviroserv spoke.
Gordon received applause when he said the landfill site was closed indefinitely.
He said it was up to community representatives who sat on the monitoring committee to make changes to the terms of reference to make them relevant as they were around 20 years old.
“The licence condition for a landfill stipulates that there shall be a monitoring committee which shall meet at regular intervals,” Gordon explained.
The purpose of the committee is to create a forum where community representatives can monitor compliance with the conditions set out in the licence, and to provide a forum where their needs and concerns can be addressed with Enviroserv and relevant authorities.
Environmentalist Desmond D’sa said the terms of reference should give the community more legal power to hold Enviroserv accountable for its operations. He accused Enviroserv of not respecting the current monitoring committee and deliberately withholding information from the public, an allegation which Taaka disputed.
There was a lengthy argument about representation in the monitoring committee.
“There should be a representative from every area and the way I see it is that black townships have been left out of the committee even though they are affected because they live closest to the landfill,” said Vincent Mkhize.
His sentiments were echoed by various people, including a member of the monitoring committee, Dumisani Mkhize.
“The issue of representation has been a challenge for years now and I know, because I’ve served on the committee for five years. So it’s not fair to vote on anything until all the affected communities are represented and their concerns are heard,” he said.
The meeting was adjourned after parties agreed that affected communities would use the next seven days, from Wednesday, to submit written proposals on how they believed the terms of reference should be amended. THOSE who live in the area may disagree, but when visiting the Shongweni landfill site you never know which smell is going to greet you at the gate.
In the past 11 days, I twice visited the site. On my first visit, it was a sunny day, not a cloud in sight – but the