2.2.7 Financing of waste management

(a) Budgeting for waste services

The Municipal Systems Act, Act no. 32 of 2000 (Chapter 8, ss73-86A) requires that municipalities must ensure proper budgeting in order that they are able to deliver on their Constitutional mandate with regards to the provision of waste services. In order for a municipality to successfully implement its IWMP, it is important to establish the current available resources in terms of finance; human resources, technical skills to deliver on the municipality's mandate and to implement the goals and targets contained in the plan i.e. development of by-laws and lastly, funding for operational and maintenance costs for equipment for the effective delivery of waste services and establishment of waste disposal facilities. Further, financial management/budgeting is key as it will assist in identifying future resource needs i.e. if there is an increase in the number of households requiring waste collection services what additional resources will be required to deliver the service. A typical budget includes the following information:

Table13: Examples of categories of waste management cost drivers

Item Amount per annum
Collection Transportation R700 000
Capex-purchase (vehicles) R400 000
Maintenance R100 000
Fuel R150 000
Receptacles R50 000
General R25 000
Recyclables R25 000
Governance Staff (remuneration) R1 000 000
Education and awareness R500 000
IWMPS R500 000
Disposal By-laws R500 000
Transfer station R300 000
Disposal sites R10 000 000
Acquisition of land, equipment R5 000 000
Regulatory compliance, EIA's and licence R5 000 000

Table 14: Summary of the budget

Item Total amount
Collection R700 000
Governance R2 500 000
Disposal R10 300 000

The available income/revenue should be listed and the sources of income must also be indicated. Of importance is that a municipality should determine how much revenue is generated in a given year and it should keep record of income and expenditure for compliance reasons (MFMA).

(b) Organisational and institutional matters

Under this section, a municipality must indicate its current organizational structure or organogram in order to determine the available human resources to deliver waste services. The organogram will highlight the number of available staff under each section such as staff to perform management duties, planning, waste collection, recycling and disposal, and enforcement etc. Further an organizational structure could potentially be used to evaluate gaps in areas where there are new functions that must be performed in order to fulfill the Waste Act's requirements. An example of an organogram is illustrated below:

Figure 03

Figure 3: Current organogram

If the above was an organogram of a particular municipality, then that municipality would require additional capacity in order to be able to meet the Waste Act's requirements which amongst others include the development of by-laws, enforcement of by-laws (designation of EMI's), a waste disposal facility manager to manage its waste disposal facility according to the Waste license and supervisors to supervise general workers. Staff shortages can be addressed as one of the goals/targets under the implementation plan as the successful implementation of an IWMP lies in the availability of staff to deliver on the municipality's mandate.