Waste project on back burner

More details, private investor needed on R3.7bn recycling scheme, says Trollip

MAYOR Athol Trollip has put the brakes on an ambitious R3.7-billion waste diversion project for Nelson Mandela Bay, saying he needed more details about how it would work and all the costs involved.

Touted as a mega-project, the first of its kind in South Africa if it succeeds, the recycling project is expected to create about 300 jobs.

The metro collects 500 000 tons of waste every year.

The plan, which has been in the pipeline for years, is to work with the private sector to recycle waste and transform it into energy as well as products that can be sold to the public.

This will require added facilities and waste drop-off centres.

The municipality, working closely with the national Treasury, is still on the hunt for a private investor who will fork out the bulk of the money needed to get the project running.

The municipality hopes to have it fully operational by 2021.

However, at a mayoral committee meeting yesterday, Trollip raised concerns about the major costs involved without definite returns to the city.

“We are not going to have mega-projects that consume mega-money with no return,” he said.

“I know too little about this project. We have more questions than answers

“As far as I’m concerned megaprojects need to be fully understood.

“We need to understand where the money is coming from.

“We need to make sure tender processes are done properly and that everything that is done is beyond reproach.

“We are not going to have a repeat of the IPTS [bus system] in Nelson Mandela Bay.”

If the metro does not deal properly with its waste and gases at its two landfill sites, it will have to develop a new landfill site which could cost up to R1.5-billion, according to Treasury official Strover Maganedisa.

“There’s new legislation that details how to develop a landfill,” he said.

“If the municipality was to go out now and develop a new landfill site, the cost would be between R1.3-billion to R1.5-billion. Those are costs to be avoided.

“You have an opportunity now to take the [waste] and turn it into revenue.

“You’ll be able to convert [it] into revenue that will infiltrate into the municipality and [can] be directed to other objectives of the municipality.”

Councillors Dean Biddulph and Annette Lovemore said they were struggling to understand how the city would benefit financially with the amount of money that would have to go into the project.

“I’m struggling to see the value . . . I’m a bit nervous about the admission that we don’t have a private partner,” Biddulph said.

“What is the bottom line for the city?”

Trollip said the municipality was not doing enough to sort waste and encourage recycling.

“Currently, our waste management and disposal is simply collect all the rubbish, dump it all in one place and hope that it won’t become too much of a mountain too soon,” he said.

“I believe we should be starting well in advance in getting our own act together before we start going for a system that is state of the art and unprecedented in South Africa.

“These are the issues that we are going to have to debate among ourselves before we go into a system that we are not managing well at the moment,” Trollip said.

He later asked city manager Johann Mettler to halt the project until the new coalition government was fully briefed about the effects and costs involved.

We are not going to have mega-projects that consume mega-money with no return