The City of Tshwane will not budge on its resolution to implement stricter rules governing waste management contracts despite mounting pressure to do so from disgruntled service providers who failed to meet the requirements.
Some municipal officials and truck drivers have been at the receiving end of threats and violence allegedly from at least 60% of contractors who didn’t make it back onto the new tender implemented on July 15.
In one instance a truck was pelted with stones in Mamelodi while en route to the Heatherly landfill site to dispose of waste.
According to the City, new stringent rules for waste management were introduced to improve efficiency of the service based on the lessons learnt from previous tenders awarded.
Municipal spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the City wished “to make it categorically clear that it will not relax the tightened specification for the refuse removal contract”.
One of the contract specifications required a truck to have an e-Natis valid certificate to verify the roadworthiness of the vehicle and to ensure that the vehicle certificate is not fraudulent.
As another requisite for waste management, trucks would have to be fitted with tracking devices to verify that the allocated routes had been travelled.
Lastly, the contractors’ vehicles should not be older than nine years to prevent the frequent breakdown of an old vehicle.
The tender, known as the SS01 waste removal contract, was implemented after it had been approved by the bid adjudication committee.
Bokaba said: “The City reviewed and tightened the specification this time around to improve efficiency of the service based on the lessons learnt from previous tenders awarded.”
He said the specification will also be applicable to the sub-contractors.
“Tshwane benchmarked with other metros in Gauteng when considering the refuse removal specification and discovered that Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg required vehicles not to be older than three years and five years, respectively,” he said.
The City said this week it suspected some previous service providers "are disgruntled and have resorted to threatening and displaying aggression towards drivers of the new contractors”.
To avert more disruptions the Tshwane Metro Police have been deployed to escort waste collection trucks servicing households to implement a catch-up plan on bin-picking backlogs.
The motion is expected to be tabled during tomorrow’s ordinary council sitting.
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