New project fails community members
Dunnottar – Members of the Unemployment People’s Co-Operative Federation of South Africa (UPCF-SA) and the Greater Nigel United People's Parliament (GRENUPP) marched to the Gibela Railway site in Dunnottar on Wednesday to deliver a memorandum of their demands as organisations that sought to give unemployed locals a fair chance of employment in the multibillion-Rand project.
In January Gibela held a public meeting where it highlighted the employment processes it would be conducting to ensure the community of Kwatsaduza and the Greater Nigel area were employed in the project.
Gibela’s economic development director, Dr Buyiswa Mncono-Liwani, said Gibela had partnered with local stakeholders who would ensure that people from Nigel and surrounding areas knew about available vacancies and the processes.
“With local non-governmental organisations (NGO) on board, we will be able to empower local women and people living with disability,” she said.
But to the community’s dismay, none of the promises were kept.
According to Tebogo Rakgabyane, chairperson of the UPCF-SA there were no disabled members from the community employed and most of the companies and subcontractors that are working on site are not from the Ekurhuleni region.
“We want to know why we are being sidelined and not taken seriously after many engagements with Gibela.
“All we want is employment for our people,” he says.
On the memorandum of demand the organisations want an immediate meeting with Gibela Rail External Stakeholders Forum with management present, the removal of non-Ekurhuleni subcontractors from the site, to have access to sourcing opportunities, the appointment of a local chief liaison officers (CLO) and to be a part of the adjudication of tenders.
“If Gibela and the other departments fail to hear our problems regarding these issues, we will have no other choice but to result to violence, and that is not what we want,” says Rakgabyane.
