MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Thousands of litter picker jobs lost

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Litter Pickers
DA NMB Mayoral Candidate, Athol Trollip, and DA NMB Councillor, Sandile Rwexwana, in front of a dump site near Kama Primary School.

Dear MyPE

It is deplorable that yesterday thousands of people lost their desperately needed jobs across Nelson Mandela Bay as a result of the indefinite suspension of the Litter Picking Project.

Financial mismanagement and overspending has blown the budget prematurely, putting more people out of work.

With spiralling unemployment where 1 in every 2 young people is without work, the indefinite suspension of the Litter Picking Project is a massive blow to thousands of NMB residents.

Furthermore, our Metro is facing an environmental crisis of critical proportions as refuse collection remains a pipe dream for many communities, resulting in widespread illegal dumping. Suspending the Litter Picking Project only serves to worsen this crisis, leaving our Metro dirtier than ever.

For too long the insider-outsider economy in this Metro has been exacerbated by an EPWP that only benefits a politically-connected few.

Many community members have pleaded with me to assist in rolling out an EPWP that is fair and unbiased.

Fairness in EPWP is exactly what the DA has delivered where we govern already, by allocating EPWP jobs through a lottery system that gives no favours or preferences to cronies. We want to bring the same fairness to EPWP in Nelson Mandela Bay.

The Western Cape government was recently recognised and awarded for its exemplary EPWP program, which is exactly what the DA wishes to replicate here in Nelson Mandela Bay.

One of the DA’s primary focuses in government is to build an economy that creates jobs. In the Western Cape, this model has managed to push unemployment down to just 24.5%, the lowest of any province, under the DA.

Under a DA government in NMB, opportunity centres will be established, as one-stop-shops, to provide information on investment opportunities, licensing, land use, planning approval procedures, investor information and business start-up advice.

The DA is ready to govern in Nelson Mandela Bay.

Regards

Athol Trollip

Editor: On 11 January 2016 the Executive Director of Public Health, Mr A. Tolom informed councillors of the temporary suspension effective from 1 February until further notice. The suspension was imposed due to budget constraints being experienced by the Waste Management Sub-Directorate. The speculation is that the over expenditure might have been due to excessive use of transportation and requests for additional Litter Pickers by certain Councillors.

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Port Elizabethan

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