“Egoli”, “City of Lights”, “City of Gold” are popular names for the City of Joburg for many of the hopeful who have come to seek greener pastures in the big metro.
With a population of more than 6 million, the city has become characterised by its litter, sewage and the foul smell of urine. The appointment of Kabelo Gwamanda as mayor in May last year, was hailed a dawn of hope in terms of service delivery and eliminating litter – in spite of controversy surrounding fraud allegations against him.
Instead, nine months into his appointment, the city remains a pigsty.
The World Health Organization (WHO) in September 2021, published its Air Quality Guidelines (AQG) to combat air pollution globally and offer health-based air quality for a healthy, and clean environment.
According to WHO, air pollution and litter are common in developing countries, in particular, urban cities, like Joburg.
The WHO indicated that, airborne Particulate Matter 10 (PM10) must be PM 20 annually, and per 24 hours, it should not exceed PM50 in order to reduce mortality rate and chronic diseases, such as respiratory diseases, cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
However, this year’s Air Quality Index (AQI) report in Gauteng puts Joburg in third place and as Gauteng’s most polluted cities, rating PM65 per 24 hours.
On Friday, The Star spoke to the mayor’s office’s communications officer Mlimandlela Ndamase about the mayor failing to end the litter scourge in the CBD.
Ndamase said: “The inner city is cleaned daily by dedicated teams of Pikitup that sweep through the city early every morning. Experience has shown that it takes a matter of a few hours everyday for parts of the city to be overwhelmingly dirty, despite the clean-up.”
He added that pollution continues to surge due to illegal and informal trading, hijacked buildings, overpopulation and illegal taxi ranks mushrooming in the city.
Hence, Gwamanda’s office plans to step up the visibility law enforcement, increase the regularity of waste collection by Pikitup, introduce organised trading spaces, public toilets and safe walkways for a litter-free city.
Asked whether pollution extermination is part of this year’s city budget, he said: “The city has budgetary constraints currently with a variety of competing priorities, which include water infrastructure and human settlements development, etc. It continues to provide resources for implementation of basic services, such as waste collection.”
Chief operations officer, Zwelihle Magwaza, from Love Our City Klean (LOCK), a waste management company, emphasised the CBD’s polluted state was detrimental to the ecosystem and endangers the lives of people.
“We are facing so many undetected sicknesses that are caused by illegal dumping, rodents, pests and terrible smells from rotten trash.
“It’s affecting our well-being, and quality of life in the city. All the land fill sites in Joburg, have realistically no capacity, and are filling the air with all sorts of methane gases,” he said.
Magwaza said their company has not been able to work with the mayor’s office to clean up the city, due to the delay of administrative procedures. He explained that the mayor’s office should work with local organisations as long-term solutions to battle pollution.
“The city must start working with smaller community organisations to (create an awareness) of the environment. Open LOCK hubs around the city ... is a holistic solution that provides education, children’s programmes, recreation and job creation. Instead, the city has high-costing contracts for cleaning the city, but nothing happens,” he said.
Magwaza attributed the CBD’s blocked drains to the high density of litter as well; when heavy rains occur, there are floods because of this, like the heavy flooding that occurred in Maboneng earlier in January, and other surrounding parts of the CBD.
The Star
Hope Mafu
hope.mafu@inl.co.za