Tshwane’s service delivery hampered by ongoing Samwu strike

Service delivery in the City of Tshwane remains at a go-slow as the illegal strike by South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) continued into the fourth week, while they awaited the ruling of the salary and wage increase exemption application at the South African Local Government Bargaining Council.

In many parts of Tshwane, garbage bags stood uncollected while residents in Mamelodi waited almost two weeks for the power to be reconnected in their area due to municipal workers being too scared to go out and work.

Over the weekend, a group of angry Mamelodi residents went to a local ward councillor’s house to demand that their power supply to their houses be restored after being without power for two weeks.

Tshwane MMC for utilities and regional operations and coordination Themba Fosi said the city was working hard to address the high number of service interruptions across the city.

“The city is aware of a high volume of power outages and water supply interruptions in various areas. It has come to the city’s attention that the recent protest actions in Soshanguve Block F and Block XX were related to service interruptions,” he said.

Fosi assured affected residents that the city’s technicians were working hard to restore services throughout the seven regions of Tshwane, despite capacity constraints due to the ongoing unlawful and unprotected strike by some employees.

He said vandalism, cable theft and illegal connections significantly contributed to the outages experienced across the city.

“For instance, in Soshanguve extension 8 and 10, the network keeps on tripping due to an overload in the system, which is caused by illegal connections. In Block CC, AA and FF East, GG, HH and FF, a medium voltage cable was stolen. A mini-substation in Block XX burnt due to illegal connections,” he said.

Congress of South African Trade Unions Gauteng chair Amos Monyela confirmed the strike was still ongoing. Last week, Samwu accused the city of illegally locking out employees from accessing their workplaces and municipal vehicles they use to provide services.

It was believed Red Ant Security Relocation & Eviction Services were called to the Temba water department plant to remove workers, while others were barred from entering their offices as it was cordoned off with razor wire.

Tshwane caucus chair Jacqui Uys said they were waiting for the exemption application to be heard in court tomorrow.

Uys added by Friday, some workers won’t get paid following the “no-work no-pay” policy.