A remote rural municipality, which laboured tirelessly in seeing that its towns are kept clean, finally got the recognition it deserved when it received a big trophy for being the most improved municipality in a provincial competition for the cleanest town.

Mutale municipality is one of the smallest municipalities in Limpopo, with a population of slightly more than 131 000. It has two towns, Masisi and Tshilamba. The municipality has been entering the cleanest municipality competition for six years, without any luck. It was only last year that the municipality came close to winning when it clinched position number two in the most improved town in waste management and position number ten in the general category, out of 36 municipalities. The competition is held annually to encourage cleanliness in towns around the municipalities of the province.

The trophy was officially handed over to the mayor and the waste management team by the waste management head, Mr Rudzani Ramugondo, during a special function held at the mayor’s boardroom last week Friday.

 Ramugondo, waste management head at the municipality, said the official handing over was done in Polokwane, but they felt it would be unjust for the team that had worked so hard over the years not to see the prize. “They are the ones who brought this fame to our municipality and this is the reason we are giving them the chance to rub shoulders with the mayor and have the chance to rejoice with him.”

He added that they were not discouraged by not winning for the past six years, but was determined to keep the towns clean as part of their service delivery to the community. “Ours was not about winning a prize, but keeping our environment clean and the prize this year is just a cherry on top,” he said. He said they were under-resourced as they only have one waste removal truck and one van to service the whole municipality.

“We are on track to making our environment waste free, in line with the Polokwane Declaration where it was decided that, by 2012, waste disposal will have been halved and by 2022 it will have reached 0% and we will have reached our goal,” he said. Ramugondo said they had embarked on campaigns to educate communities at schools, traditional councils and churches. “The competition has opened up new strategies for us on how to tackle littering. We now know our shortfalls. We are going to improve on them, and we hope for a better position next year,” said Ramugondo.

The mayor, Cllr Lucas Manyuha, was overwhelmed with happiness. “We never thought this much-coveted prize could ever come to our municipality. This is a great honour for us and it will put us on the national map,” he said.

Manyuha said the municipality will appeal to all businesses and schools to have dustbins at their premises to avoid littering. He said waste management needed to be taught to all in villages and towns. “We can have all the resources to curb littering, but without education, we will be going nowhere. Our people need to be educated,” he said.