Programme Director;
Northern Cape MEC for Environment and Nature Conservation: Patrick Mabilo;
Mayors and councillors present;
Members of the media;
Ladies and Gentlemen
Introduction
Allow me to start by requesting you to observe a moment of silent prayers to the Father of the Nation, Tata Mandela who is in his sick bed in hospital. Our icon, Madiba personifies democracy, peace and unity in diversity. He needs our prayers as a nation, during this critical moment.
Let’s observe a moment of silence.
Today is a special history-making day and I had no slightest hesitation when accepting an invitation to be part of the proceedings. Amongst others, what makes this day special is that we have taken a decision to host the awarding of the Greenest Municipalities prizes in all provinces to give it its deserved national status and eThekwini is the first municipality to host it outside Gauteng.
Another first is the showcasing of projects which are aligned with the aims of the Greenest Municipality Competition. Our decision was influenced by the need to link our vision with practical reality so the people can relate well with our advocacy. Lastly, and even more important, is that this year’s prize awards were preceded by provincial Greenest Municipality Competition.
With all these developments, we can proudly say that the GMC has come of age. It is today a transformed and inclusive national competition from the days of the Cleanest Town Competition.
As some of you would recall, the CTC’s pillars were the principles of reducing, recycling and reusing waste materials. Although these principles are still relevant, we have added other elements related to sustainable development and various greening interventions. We have ensured that the GMC focuses also on effort to get our municipalities to be central to the green economy.
Our Green Economy Plan, emphasizes the implementation of measures to strengthen and expand our economic growth through recycling and enterprise development so that we can generate and sustain jobs as well as formalize existing jobs in the waste area as part of the economy.
Our targets in the National Waste Management Strategy is that by 2015 we will have created 69 000 new jobs in the waste sector and 2 600 additional SMMEs and cooperatives participating in waste service delivery and recycling
It must be evident to you that waste management is at the core of service delivery; therefore it is important that we improve its capacity to deliver waste services.
Our Department has conducted numerous studies that have clearly illustrated the capacity constraints that are experienced by Municipalities, in delivering waste services in Landfill operations, Waste collection planning and administration and refuse collection. We have a plan to bridge the capacity gap by involving community members, as partners and ambassadors, in the process of solving the environmental challenges in general and waste challenges in particular.
The low levels of capacity in municipalities present an excellent opportunity for creation of jobs, on the job training, continuous up-skilling as well as enterprise development for the youth. An estimated 3 577 jobs will be created by placing young people in Municipalities, where they will work as: Landfill Site Assistants; Waste Collection Administrators; and Environmental Awareness Educators.
Mariannhill Landfill Site Conservancy
Ladies and Gentlemen; Marianhill Landfill Site Conservancy is an exciting project and provides an excellent model of how landfill sites should be managed. The City of eThekweni has limited availability of suitable land for landfills, resulting in landfills being in close proximity to residential areas. In the context of a developing country, it is vital that disposal facilities are in close proximity to the waste generators to ensure that the cost of waste disposal is not excessive. This has been the case with the Mariannhill Landfill.
The other biggest challenge facing the operation of landfills near residential areas is that of odour control. Extensive research into understanding the development and movement of odour from a landfill site has been underway since 1999. In conjunction with the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal, Durban Solid Waste has been developing odour mitigation strategies vital to the sustained operational development of the landfill.
In order to predict the movement of odour plumes from its source, an Odour Management System (OMS) was created out of this research. The OMS receives information from the on-site weather station, various static parameters and the odour source to generate a visual display on an on-site computer every 10 minutes, allowing DSW to accurately determine where odour is expected to be problematic, and therefore time to introduce mitigation strategies.
Landfill Gas Project
We can see that the eThekwini Municipality seems to be setting a model not only for reducing waste to landfill sites through Buy-Back Centres or introducing a unique eco-friendly system to manage a landfill site. In addition to these, they are converting the gas which builds in the landfill sites from dumped waste into electricity. This initiative should be commended and used countrywide to reduce the effect of climate change.
In this system, gas is captured through sinking wells up to 30m deep into the landfill waste sites and interconnecting pipes, all linked to a subsurface main gas collector. It is then extracted via a roots-blower-system, which maintains a partial vacuum in the pipes, resulting in the gas being sucked out of the landfill and supplying fuel to engines which generate electricity for the National power grid. A small portion of the gas is flared into the atmosphere.
The capturing of methane rich gas from landfill sites to provide fuel for the production of electricity is now part of an international programme to address climate change. Implementation from December 2006 will result in reducing carbon dioxide emissions by an astounding 450 000 tons and, the sale of electricity and carbon credits will lead to R400 million being earned by eThekweni Municipality.
The generation of this “green energy” is a leading example of good environmental and business practice – a first for Africa.
This system was first introduced in 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, the significant value of this project for local government on a national level, both economically and environmentally has been outstanding.
Ladies and gentlemen; that was my attempt to create a picture of what GMC is about. I’m glad that there has been high level of participation in this competition for the period under review which we should all find encouraging and also reassuring that we are now working towards a common vision.
As we get closer to awarding prizes, I’m pleased to announce that the competition was stiff with a total of 111 metropolitan and local municipalities having competed for the awards, starting at provinces that cultimated in these national awards.
When I look at the provincial participation breakdown, I get an indication that provinces took decisions for their municipalities to take part in the competition and that’s a reflection of true cooperative governance we have been advocating for a very long time.
Some provinces show double digits number of participating municipalities with Kwazulu-Natal in the lead with thirty (30) municipalities, followed by Limpopo with twenty five (25), the Western Cape with twenty (20), Mpumalanga with eighteen (18) and Gauteng with twelve (12).
Our department has a record of cordial working relationships with Free State, North-West and Northern Cape provinces – all of which are noticeably absent in this competition. This competition has the potential to stimulate socio-economic development and I would like to appeal to them to come on-board. In fact, I intend writing to the Premiers to establish the reasons for non-participation.
Now let’s come to the moment we have all been waiting for. I have been reliably informed that the adjudication process followed high level of standards to ensure efficiency and fairness. The Panel of Adjudicators have reportedly spent an average of three (3) days at each participating municipality to ensure adequate coverage of all areas of the competition. Before I announce the prize winners, I would like to request the Programme Director to provide the way forward on how this process should unfold. I’ll announce the winners from the Second Runner-Up, First Runner-Up and the overall Winner of the Local and the Metropolitan Municipality Category
And the winners are:
Metropolitan Municipality
| Position | Prize Money | Winning Metro |
| The Overall Winner | R3,5 million | Ekurhuleni |
| First Runner Up | R3 million | Ethekwini |
| Second Runner Up | R2,5 million | City of Cape Town |
Local Municipality
| Position | Prize Money | Winning Municipality |
| The Overall Winner | R3,5 million | Greater Tzaneen |
| First Runner Up | R3 million | Newcastle |
| Second Runner Up | R2,5 million | Drakenstein |
Ladies and gentlemen; I wish to inform you that the prize awarded today is tied to the implementation of green economy projects such as renewable energy and protective and sustainable use of environmental resources – it’s our preference that all projects should be tied to job creation.
With this competition, we are also driving home our strategic objective to help galvanize municipalities to initiate projects that address their integrated development plans (IDPs) and forge links with our Extended Public Works Programme mandate of creating temporary employment and offering skills development opportunities.
Conclusion
As I indicated earlier, 111 municipalities took park in this competition and are today aware that environmental projects are sustainable and can create temporary to permanent jobs. In the light of this, I wish to make a special appeal to the provinces of Free State, North-West and Northern Cape to come on-board and be counted amongst those who implement projects which turn people’s life for the better.
Thank you
