In the letter, the concerned principals and school governing bodies outline the health and safety effects the strike has had on the functionality of the schools in the municipality. All schools are affected by the illegal strike in the following areas:
• The health of learners and teachers are severely affected by the lack of municipal services, in particular the removal of solid waste. The accumulation of solid waste at schools is creating a real threat to the health of learners contracting various diseases such as, Typhoid, Hepatitus, Leptospirosis and many more serious infections and illnesses that are created through attracting rodents, flies, mosquitoes, stray cats and dogs.
• The safety of learners in schools have been compromised by waste collectors loitering around schools, as well as learners that have to walk past and walk through littered streets where they could easily injure themselves.
• Furthermore, no response would be able to be obtained from the Fire Department if an emergency would arise at a school.
• There were schools that were without water and electrical services for periods of time due to attempts of sabotage by municipal workers and the lack of repairs to electrical supply as well as water supply. This furthermore creates the danger of illnesses and diseases where learners and teachers are not able to wash hands and to sanitise effectively under the current Covid-19 protocols.
• Toilets that are not flushed on a regular basis create an unhealthy and virus-ridden environment in schools.
• Most schools have diligently paid their monthly rates and taxes over the past number of months where this disruption was allowed by you and your council. Hundreds of thousands of rands were paid by schools (which are struggling to make ends meet) for the collection of solid waste and have received no service for that item on our utility bills. Schools had to fork-out thousands of rands to remove solid waste from their premises.
• As a collective, we demand that your accounts department as well as your financial manager re-assess the utility bills of schools and give a credit to all schools for the non-delivery of solid waste services.
• We expect that a credit will be given for the number of days, weeks and months where services were not rendered over the past 4 months. This credit must be calculated and subtracted from the next utility bill issued in March. In failing to adhere to this demand, we will have no other choice but to seek legal advice on this matter.
• We as leaders in the Educational Fraternity demand immediate remedial action against any further strike action that is compromising education in the greater Middelburg area. The schools in the STLM are educating every learner about respect, responsibility and accountability. How do we expect them to become well-adjusted and respected adults when your municipality and municipal workers are doing exactly the opposite to this?
•We also demand that electricity tariffs of schools must be reduced and that the upcoming municipal electricity tariff increase to be kept to a minimum.
