The DA in the Dr Beyers Naude Municipality has laid criminal charges against the municipality due to its alleged inability to manage landfill sites, which have now allegedly become hazardous to residents.
Samantha Graham-Maré MP, Dr Beyers Naude Constituency Leader said that on December 1, she laid charges at the Graaff-Reinet Police Station under the National Environmental Management: Waste Act, 2008 (Act No. 59 of 2008) because the municipality has failed to fulfil a general duty in respect of waste management.
She said that on November 30, residents of Graaff-Reinet were forced to endure a suffocating pall of smoke blowing across the town which was the noxious smoke emanating from the uncontrolled fires burning at the municipal waste transfer station.
“The waste transfer station stood closed for a year due to complete mismanagement where the extent of the rubbish became unmanageable, and a woman lost her life. Instead of providing a sorting facility to remove the recycling material from wet waste, the station stood empty,” said Graham-Maré.
She said that this all changed on November 1, when the municipality issued a notice that its landfill site had been closed and that all refuse must now be dumped at the waste transfer station.
Graham-Maré said that the reason for the closure of the landfill site was that no refuse was being dumped at the actual landfill site, instead, the access road had been used as a dumping site to the extent that it was impassable.
“Were one able to pass, the tip dwellers were so aggressive that people were too scared to venture closer. By the end of October, the access road was completely blocked and the link road between the N9 and Kendrew Road had become the new dump site and had become impassable. Even municipal refuse trucks were dumped on the road. The landfill site also burns every day,” said Graham-Maré.
She said that within a month after the announcement that all rubbish must now be dumped at the waste transfer site, it has become a seething mass of rubbish, tip dwellers, and endless spirals of toxic smoke polluting the air.
Graham-Maré said that several complaints were made to the Department of Economic Development, Environmental Affairs and Tourism, but were unsuccessful.
She said that they therefore had no choice but to lay criminal charges.
“The municipality is obligated, not only to fulfill its service delivery mandate in respect of waste management but also to ensure that it is done in an environmentally sound manner which protects the health of its residents,” said Graham-Maré.
