News
Invercargill City Councillor Lindsay Thomas and Chief Executive Richard King have been asked by Local Government New Zealand to assist in Kiribati as part of a New Zealand Foreign Affairs and Trade Aid Programme.
Cr Thomas and Mr King leave on Saturday 4 June, funded by Local Government New Zealand, to spend four days in the remote, Central Pacific country, where they will help initiate an agreement to establish shared waste services between Betio Town Council and the Teinainano Urban Council.
The Southland region’s experience with WasteNet is seen as a model for shared waste management services. Cr Thomas was invited as Chairman of Council’s Infrastructure and Services Committee, plus he is Invercargill’s long-serving representative on WasteNet and Mr King has been Chief Executive from the inception of shared services and WasteNet in Southland.
They will be part of a scoping study to work with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Betio Town Council and Teinainano Urban Council, to develop their knowledge of the process, costs and benefits of shared waste management
This initial visit will be followed by a reciprocal visit by representatives from Kiribati to Invercargill.
Cr Lindsay Thomas said that he was looking forward to helping the people in“Kiribati is one of the world’s poorest countries, with few natural resources and coming from Southland, which is so abundant in natural resources, I would like to think that we may have something practical and useful to offer them with waste management. It would be a good thing for our community to be able to make a real difference to the people there,” Cr Thomas said.
Both the Betio Town Council and Teinainano Urban Council provide waste collections within their area. There is also a user pays (green bag) waste collection provided in each council area.
The general public does not contribute directly to the council for waste collection, instead commercial businesses, schools, government agencies and government workers either pay a licensing fee or a tax from their pay packet to support this service.
In the past, businesses have expressed unhappiness with the waste collection services. They do not believe that they receive value for money and services were considered to be unreliable – including changes to collection days and service disruptions because it was raining.
Local Government New Zealand has been providing advice to the two councils since 2013 but from the outset it has been apparent that the councils should consider a shared service approach to address resourcing issues, both in terms of staff (in particular skills) and equipment.