By Rochelle Neidel
TSUMEB-Streets in Tsumeb, especially those in the residential areas, remain an eyesore due to heaps of refuse – but the municipality maintains it is doing its job in keeping the town clean.
Tsumeb Municipality’s Health Inspector Glenn Kearnes maintains that the local authority is doing its best insofar as regularly cleaning the streets is concerned.
“Maybe its new refuse but the refuse has been picked up,” Kearnes said when asked about heaps of refuse on the streets, some from before Christmas.
Kearns maintained that the local authority picks up litter regularly but could not say why the town was still filled with heaps of litter on most street corners.
New Era visited residential areas where some residents had resorted to creating their own rubbish dumps claiming that they could not keep litter in their yards. New Era also visited the same areas at the beginning of December last year and during subsequent visits, the situation had not improved. Kearns however said streets such as the famous Efraim Guiob street in the Nomtsoub residential area were cleaned this week.
A resident in the Nomstoub residential area that spoke on condition of anonymity said: “It has never been the case in this town that we struggle to get the municipality to collect refuse. What happened? If there is a company that is contracted why don’t they do the job? If it’s the municipality’s responsibility why don’t they provide the basic service we pay our water on time for?”
Kearns said said it was the municipality’s responsibility to remove the refuse, stressing: “We clean up, if there is refuse it must be new.”
Once voted the cleanest town, the copper town seems to be struggling to maintain that status.