Pikitup gets extra hands for festive season operations

14 December 2016

 

Pikitup, the City of Johannesburg’s waste management entity, has employed an extra 1 085 workers to ensure the city is clean throughout the festive season.

 

The extra staff, mostly young people, will work between December 2016 and January 2017 to ensure the festive season waste collection programme runs without any glitches.

Pikitup says the daily quantity of waste increases during the December holidays. It says hiring more staff will assist in tackling these expected high volumes of waste.

Johannes Thakheli, Pikitup’s Specialist Youth and Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) Manager, said many Pikitup employees were on leave at this time of the year.

“We are usually short-staffed around this time as our drivers and street cleaners take their annual leave. Before we used labour brokers. Management then gave a directive that we must source workers directly.

“We get workers, especially the youth, from the database of the City’s Social Development Department and through ward councillors. When hiring workers, we have to adhere to EPWP guidelines, which stipulate, among other things, that the majority of workers must be the youth,” said Thakeli.

Pikitup has urged Johannesburg residents to dispose of their waste in a manner that will reduce illegal dumping and overloading of bins. Waste that is not responsibly disposed of usually results in a health hazard stemming from rat and fly infestation.

Residents whose waste collection falls on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day are requested to take out their bins on 26 December 2016 and 2 January 2017, respectively.

The entity has also appealed to residents to refrain from giving employees Christmas gifts. Pikitup does not permit them to solicit Christmas donations from residents. Over the past week 10 people, including Pikitup employees, were arrested in three separate incidents in southern Johannesburg on charges of fraud and misrepresentation.

Two men dressed in Pikitup uniforms were arrested in Mondeor after a member of the Community Policing Forum questioned them about their presence in the area.

In the Glenvista-Bassonia area, four men, also pretending to be Pikitup employees, were arrested. Three more were apprehended in Mulbarton.