The management of the Wellington landfill site will soon be outsourced after Drakenstein Municipality recently approved the recommendation to award a tender of more than R88 million for the management of the landfill site.
EnviroServ Waste Management will manage the landfill site for a period of five years at the tender amount of R88 832 619,16.
On Monday 6 June Drakenstein Municipality held a special virtual council meeting to approve the recommendations before council, but this was not unanimously accepted which led to voting on the matter. Seven councillors abstained from voting (this included those that were absent and who were not on record), 16 against the recommendation and 38 councillors voted in favour of the recommendation.
The Wellington landfill site has been under the spotlight for quite some time.
During the meeting opposition parties like the ANC, CDR, VF Plus and the Good Party raised their concerns about the outsourcing of the management of the landfill site and also what the tender amount included.
They felt strongly that the Municipality should rather buy their own equipment which they felt would be more cost effective in the long term and that it will then be the property of Drakenstein. They also felt that this could have created an opportunity for the Municipality to invest in the community in terms of skills development and thus creating job opportunities.
The VF Plus also wanted to know exactly what the tender will include and if there are additional costs coming to the Municipality and ultimately the rate payers.
“What is tragic to me today is that we will support this tender for the simple reason that we do not have confidence in Drakenstein Municipality to handle and manage the process. The document itself states that the city council does not have the staff, the ability and the knowledge to do so and it is clear that there is a lack of planning and management over a long period of time. There are quite a few questions and concerns in our minds,” Andre Fourie of the VF Plus said.
Responding to questions, Cllr Lorraine Cyster, MMC for Parks, Waste and Cemetries, said that the new service provider will provide jobs to local waste pickers that will do recycling and waste picking.
“As an MMC, I can assure the council that no additional hidden costs have been incorporated into the cost benefit analysis,” she said.
Upon inquiring with the Municipality about what the tender amount will include, Gerald Esau, Executive Director: Community Services at Drakenstein Municipality, said the tender makes provision for waste disposal and waste diversion activities at the Wellington Landfill Site, including all staff required, security services on site, and all yellow equipment. This equipment includes a 32-tonne landfill compactor, water truck, back-end loader, front-end loader, two tippers, a bell logger, and chipping and crushing equipment.
“To do the work in-house would have cost the Municipality approximately R1 million more per month, and would have meant that we had to purchase equipment at over R50 million. It is standard practice to outsource landfill-site management due to cost benefit analysis (example, Swartland Municipality and many others).”
He said the Municipality rented the landfill compactor to cover the daily disposed waste as per their licence conditions, and to do compaction to obtain maximum air space to extend the landfill site’s life span.
“Renting a landfill compactor for a period of six months, at R360 000 per month (excluding VAT), the Municipality saved a total of 17 additional months of air space for the landfill site – valued at almost R14 mil.”
He said that Wellington landfill site’s current expected lifespan is until 2028 and that longer term plans have also been put in place.
During the council meeting Esau said the Municipality will after three years assess the situation to see if it is still lucrative for the Municipality to make use of a service provider or to assess the current status whether they should either do it in-house, should it be deemed necessary.
Mayor Conrad Poole commented that he also had concerns that he raised with the City Manager, Johan Leibbrandt, and Esau and they assured him that at this stage it is the best financial decision and that the Municipality can even save money when they get experts to manage the landfill site.
