/ 22 July 2009

Prioritise the environment, Sonjica tells municipalities

Municipalities should prioritise waste management and the greening of townships to restore dignity to all South Africans, Water And Environmental Affairs Minister Buyelwa Sonjica said on Wednesday.

”We, as a department, are extremely worried that our communities have to live in such squalid conditions that violate their constitutional right to a clean environment,” she said at the local government indaba on the environment.

”The time has come for all of us to act,” she said, adding that this included communities, which had to be active agents of clean environments.

As municipalities were at the forefront of service delivery, they were best positioned to champion clean environments and ensure that South Africans benefited from legislation to provide clean and habitable environments.

”We need to move away from being a throw-away society that focuses on end-of-pipe waste management solutions that result in huge landfill sites to one which is much more responsible and cognisant of the need to inter alia minimise waste and dispose as a last resort.

”We want to promote minimisation, reuse and recycling.”

Acknowledging that not everyone had access to refuse removal services, Sonjica said a basic refuse removal policy was aimed at these communities.

Other challenges were human and financial capacity constraints.

”Local government is equally affected by the shortage of skills which sometimes result from skills flight from one area to the other or from one sphere of government to the other,” she said.

Her department was aware that without properly supporting local government, there would be no improved service delivery which met sustainability indicators. — Sapa