THE global economic downturn has left many municipalities in the country cash-strapped, some having to abandon essential service delivery projects crucial to improving the lives of their citizens.

The country's economic powerhouse, Johannesburg, hasn't escaped this calamity, but it has taken some innovative measures to ensure residents enjoy quality services. One City department that has taken the economic initiative is infrastructure and services, which monitors the performance of the City's waste management entity, Pikitup.

The department is implementing a public private partnership (PPP) - the first ever to be undertaken by Johannesburg - in which the department will join hands with a private company to dispose of waste through an alternative waste technology plant.

Speaking at a Municipal Public Private Partnership Conference at Turffontein Racecourse on 18 February, Palesa Mathibeli, director: waste sector in the infrastructure and services department, said the project would not only drastically reduce waste at landfill sites, but would also bring in much-needed revenue.

"The City is fast running out of landfills to dispose of waste, but at the same the amount of waste is increasing. It is estimated that his PPP will reduce waste by 80 percent."

Mathibeli said it was difficult to establish new landfills because of the lack of suitable land and new legislation that required 15 percent of waste to be diverted from landfills. Two landfills in the north of the city have closed down, leaving only four in the south.

Robinson Landfill has three years left before it is full, while Marie Louise and Ennerdale have seven and 10 years left, respectively. Goudkoppies has 17 years.

The City is a signatory on the Polokwane Declaration, which states that municipalities should put measures in place to reduce waste to landfills by 50 percent by 2012, and zero waste to landfills by 2022, making the alternative technology project all the more necessary.

"After the Polokwane Declaration, the City set itself targets to divert 15 percent of waste from landfills by 2010. However, we are in 2010 now but we are only managing five to seven percent. But we are working towards these targets," said Mathibeli.

Once implemented, the alternative waste technology plant would have the potential to generate electricity for sale to residents, earning the City much-needed revenue. "We project that even though the cost per tonne to process waste to energy will be more expensive than the cost per tonne without waste to energy, the total income from the sale of electricity will be way over these costs."

While the project is the first of its kind for Joburg, it has taken a leaf from similar successful projects overseas. In Denmark, 13 organic household composting plants, 33 incinerators, 120 garden waste composting plants and five biogas facilities had been established, reducing waste to landfills drastically, according to Mathibeli.

Establishing the plant would take about three years. The process would include site selection, a hazardous landfill site to deposit any waste from the plant and possibly changing certain by-laws. There was also the process to find a suitable partner to finance the project, said Mathibeli.

The chief executive officer of the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC), Molaodi Khotsoane, who also attended the conference, urged municipalities in Gauteng to follow Joburg's example and look into innovative ways to enhance service delivery.

He said resources were very limited and municipalities needed to "unlock and explore other ways to mobilise alternative sources of funding" during these tough times. "Municipalities have to be innovative. Not only government can enhance people's lives but all communities must put their heads together, explore public private partnerships to increase service delivery."

Khotsoane said there was a huge backlog in building infrastructure in municipalities. After the advent of democracy, there was a notable reluctance by municipalities to explore PPPs in developing infrastructure, but circumstances had changed.

"Let's bring the private sector on board. We have seen how PPPs have worked well recently and a good example is the Gautrain project. Such projects have seen municipalities in Gauteng gain from skills transfer and capacity building. They have also benefited from the efficiencies of the private sector."

The need for municipalities to hook in the private sector to enhance service delivery could be illustrated by the dwindling of functions performed by local governments, according to Allyson Lawless of the South African Institute of Civil Engineers.

Lawless said, ideally, five functions were performed by municipalities:

• Non-income generating residential infrastructure;
• Income-generating residential infrastructure;
• Infrastructure to support commercial, industrial and economic development;
• Operations; and
• Maintenance of existing infrastructure.

Currently, most municipalities performed only two of these functions: provision of non-income generating residential infrastructure and maintenance of existing infrastructure. "In the new South Africa, we need to have all five functioning. We also need to access the private sector as much as possible," said Lawless.

Exacerbating this situation, municipalities were losing engineering personnel to the private sector because of politics in local government. "Infrastructure projects in municipalities are failing due to limited capacity and control. Capacity levels are at an all-time low and we have to get people into the public sector and increase our capacity in local government."

Lawless said municipalities suffered from infrastructure project failures; limited maintenance of waste, sanitation and storm water infrastructure; and ageing electricity distribution networks and equipment. "Gauteng has a current estimated maintenance backlog of over R28-billion in surfacing roads, upgrading electricity networks, sewerage networks and water networks, to name a few."

To enable municipalities to catch up on these backlogs, there was a need to harness the private sector "to break the back of development and upgrading needs, and assist with training of engineering personnel".

The advantages of harnessing the private sector in infrastructure development by municipalities were evident, said Lawless. Both parties took risks and could make a profit. "The private sector also takes over municipal functions, helping municipalities become more efficient," said Lawless.

Strove Maganedisa, project adviser in the PPP unit in the National Treasury, said all municipalities could learn from the City of Johannesburg how to implement a public private partnership.

Source: Joburg