“Mow shedding” has been lifted at community parks and other public spaces as the City of Cape Town’s mowing tender has been finalised.
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This comes after mowing services across Cape Town were adversely affected by an appeal related to the mowing tender.
According to the City, measures were implemented in October to provide the service using available capacity, which would be reduced until full capacity was reinstated.
However, last week, Cape Town’s Recreation and Parks Department confirmed the appointment of five service providers to maintain all grassed areas across the metropole.
The two-year contracts will be in place until 30 June next year.
“With contractors in place, the department had closed 1 614 customer service requests in the past two months,” said the City, adding that each of the City’s four areas was awarded a main contractor as well as two standby contractors “to ensure that there are sufficient resources to manage the backlog”.
The City added that the appointed service providers’ contractual agreements also made provision for subcontracting to ensure that services are delivered without interruption and with sufficient capacity to cope with the mowing demands.
Meanwhile, chair of the Friends of Constantia Valley Greenbelts, Colin Walker, believes that unless the City extends the tender contracts to at least three years, a sustainable solution will remain out of reach.
“You are continually teaching new contractors what to do – they have no understanding, no knowledge of the greenbelts,” he told People’s Post. “To exacerbate the problem, the contractors are poorly managed by the City.”
According to Walker, new contractors do not undergo a proper induction of the various greenbelts, nor do they receive adequate instruction from the City.
“Somebody has to take them to each of the 12 greenbelts, show them the scope of the work, let them do it and then follow up for quality control. But they are not being monitored.”
“It hasn’t been consistent, hasn’t been of a high enough standard and the work is often incomplete. There is no adequate system in place. Overall, there is a lack of quality and delivery.”
He added that one of the main reasons for mowing the greenbelts was to prevent alien encroachment.
“When mowing eventually takes place, the contractors mow around these stands and they eventually become small trees that now require a big effort to remove. Proactive management by the various City departments is poor management in this regard.”
Walker says a well-trained contractor would know how to recognise and remove these invaders as soon as they shoot up. He says this has been an ongoing issue.
“Overall, the City is falling short in its mandate of maintaining the greenbelts, of which the most basic of those jobs is to mow the open spaces and keep the paths open.”
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