The Buffalo City Municipality recently unveiled its R54 million new fleet.

The fleet, which includes 20 new compactor trucks, eight tipper trucks, water tankers, and three TLB’s, has been hailed as a welcomed upgrade to the municipality’s ailing and inadequate fleet of refuse trucks.

The municipality’s original fleet consisted of eight refuse trucks to service the entire Metro and due to the intensive work and large area covered; the truck’s condition had severely deteriorated.

Commenting on the acquisition Helen Neal-May, the City’s Portfolio Head for Community Services said the municipality would be able to deal with the issue of illegal dumping and also make sure refuse is collected on time across the Metro.

New fleet to improve service delivery

Executive Mayor Xola Pakati noted that the procurement of the new fleet would assist in upgrading infrastructure and providing the municipality with the capacity to deliver services to the people.

The municipality’s Infrastructure Services also recently conducted site visits to projects in the inland region of the Metro. Some of the visits included the new King Williams Town electricity sub-station, Cliff rural roads project, and the Phakamisa Waste Water Treatment Works (WWTW).

“We understand that our Metro is not like the others, it is mostly rural therefore we should at all times be sensitive to rural development in particular service delivery to rural communities.”

Phakamisa WWTW

One of the Metro’s Major projects is the Phakamisa WWTW, which in its completion service Bhisho, King William’s Town (KWT) and Zwelitsha urban and peri-urban areas. This is a multi-year project worth R249 million and is expected to be operational by April 2019.

“Our infrastructure in the inland region is ailing and needs to be upgraded in order to have the capacity to service the new and developing communities.”