Double murder at Nelson Mandela Bay landfill tragic result of poor site management
The cold-blooded murder of a father and son at a landfill site in Gqeberha this week is symptomatic of the crisis that is unfolding at municipal landfills nationwide. So says AfriForum, who has repeatedly spoken out against the lack of security and access control at various municipal landfill sites. The civil rights organisation conducts an annual audit to determine whether landfill sites meet, among other things, the safety requirements for responsible waste management.
“It seems that the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality is paying lip service to the promise to use more than R65 million to improve the situation at the Arlington landfill site and formalise the work of hundreds of informal recyclers. In reality, little is being done here and elsewhere to improve safety measures and management at ground level,” says Marais de Vaal, AfriForum’s Advisor for Environmental Affairs.
“If the community runs the risk of losing their lives every time they visit municipal landfill sites, illegal dumping and environmental pollution will increasingly be a problem. This is once again proof that municipalities’ inability to properly manage landfills is failing the very communities that pay for these services.”
AfriForum is sending a letter to the Municipal Manager today requesting detailed safety measures being implemented at the Arlington landfill site and the steps being taken to protect law-abiding citizens on site. A meeting has also been requested with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment’s Deputy Director General of Waste Management, Mamogala Musekene, to discuss the independent management of landfill sites and the active involvement of communities and the private sector.
Safety is one of the determining factors of compliance in AfriForum’s annual landfill audit. It has been found several times that some municipal landfill sites are occupied illegally, apply little or no access control and that informal recyclers are allowed to intimidate the public when they dump waste.
“In some of the worst cases, it is as if informal recyclers are at the helm of affairs at landfills,” says De Vaal. “AfriForum staff have been prevented from carrying out audits on more than one occasion and there was even a case where informal recyclers tried to hijack the car of an AfriForum staff member who had to do the audit.”
Jacques Broodryk, AfriForum’s Chief Spokesperson for Community Safety, says this kind of lawlessness, which prevails even on landfill sites, will spread further if the national and local government do not act against it soon.
“The brutal double murder at the Arlington landfill site is the direct result of a government that does not prioritise the safety of its citizens. AfriForum calls on the public to get involved with local security structures and neighbourhood watches so that there are more hands available to combat crime in communities.”
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