Executive Mayor, Olly Mlamleli, says municipal employees are back at work. Additional contractors have been brought in to assist the metro with a backlog of refuse removal services. This comes after refuse in black bags have been piling up throughout the city during a strike by members of the South African Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu). Mlamleli says, however, the metro is very concerned that garden refuse is put among household refuse to be removed by the metro. She appeals to residents to cooperate in this regard.

Mlamleli says she has been driving around the city the past three days and has seen a lot of garden refuse among household refuse placed outside by residents who expect the metro to remove it all together. "We are not responsible for removing garden refuse. It is residents’ own responsibility to take their garden refuse to municipal dumping sites."

OFM News, however, could not get Mlamleli's response during the swift interview about the unsafe conditions at municipal dumping sites. There have been reports of a number of residents who were allegedly assaulted and robbed at these sites while they were dumping refuse.

OFM News