Johannesburg - The owner of a human-waste removal company has suspended two of his employees after pictures of them dumping sewage next to a school emerged.
The pictures were taken on Sunday afternoon next to Elethu Themba Public School in Eikenhof, south of Joburg.
They show a septic-tank truck parked in the bushes while a man holding a pipe spills the contents from the truck onto the ground.
Thabo Finger, the owner of Masekela Waste, said he was so shocked when he saw the pictures that his mouth went dry.
“I immediately put the driver and his assistant on suspension,” he said. Allegations are that it wasn’t the first time the same truck had spilt the waste on that stretch of veld.
Michelle Pelser of the Mondeor Community Police Forum said that this time, a resident took pictures of the men spilling the waste.
She said the waste seeped into the ground and into the water table, which contaminated the community’s water. Pelser said it was health hazard to the nearby school.
A shocked Finger said he was unaware that this had been going on and he was afraid that the men’s actions might be construed to suggest that he was the one who instructed them to spill the waste.
His trucks are clearly branded with the company’s name and his contact details.
On Monday, he received a call from a woman who alerted him to the spilling of the waste. Finger, who has been running the company for 15 years, said he was initially sceptical, but believed the woman after the workers removed the waste from the toilets and took it to the Johannesburg Water facility in Nancefield, Soweto.
“The septic tanks have to be taken there as I have an arrangement with Johannesburg Water. When the woman called and said it was my truck, I said ‘no way’. She then sent me the pictures and my mouth went dry with shock. The guys were so easy-going in the pictures, as if they are used to doing it. There was no reason for this to have happened.”
Finger said he suspended the driver and his assistant. An internal hearing was scheduled for today. “The reason may come out in the hearing, but I suspect it is laziness.”
Johannesburg Water could not be reached for comment.
Pikitup’s Jacky Mashapu said the entity was also facing problems with irresponsible disposal of waste as people had created unhealthy illegal dumps across the city.
“There is a mindset among Joburg citizens that tolerates littering and illegal dumping. It costs Pikitup more than R600 million a year to clean it up,” he pointed out.
The Star