Since the start of the year Pikitup has been a cause for concern for residents throughout Johannesburg. Several complaints have been lodged about their service delivery, especially the lack thereof.
This past week, more and more complaints have been brought forward with regards to waste collections. Earlier in the year, Pikitup confirmed that they were struggling with a shortage of manpower and trucks to complete their collections. This is mainly due to the fact that most of their trucks have exceeded their average life-span, which has led to several breakdowns.
Over the past week, collections have yet again fallen behind and today, 2 March, they were delayed even further. No Pikitup collections were done today due to workers allegedly protesting about labour-related issues.
According to Ward 89 councillor, Amelia Bester, the protest is against non-delivery of raincoats. According to Bester, the entity has not supplied all regions with the raincoats that were promised to them on 1 February this year. Bester also stated that the workers were offered raincoats that were in stock, but they refused to accept them. Ward 70 councillor, Caleb Finn, further confirmed the reason for the protest and added that the coats were in the process of being delivered.
The Pikitup regional manager, Stella Wilson, has been attempting to resolve this issue throughout the day, but has notified residents that despite her best efforts, she unfortunately was unable to do so. “Despite my best efforts to negotiate with my refuse loaders, they refuse to go and work,” said Wilson in a message to ward councillors. She said the negotiations have been up and down all day, but unfortunately the workers could not be convinced to return to their jobs, meaning that there have been and will be no collections today.
However, on a more positive note, an interim agreement seems to have been reached and Wilson confirmed that tomorrow, 3 March, Pikitup is planning to start catching up on last week’s uncollected rounds, and the missed refuse collections from today.
