Municipal workers place duty above pay as overtime cap hurts residents

A handful of municipal workers volunteered their time over the weekend to install sponsored parts to restore water to thousands of residents in Equestria because the municipality did not have spare parts in stock.

It was a challenging weekend for residents in the suburb east of Pretoria, who first had to endure power outages following a storm.

This was followed by a prolonged water outage, affecting nearly 15 000 residents, due to parts that were out of stock and a cap on city workers’ overtime pay.

Community teamwork in action

Equestria ward 85 councillor Jacqui Uys had her hands full to liaise between the community, the city and stakeholders.

It all started on Friday afternoon when the head of water allegedly said the city did not have the needed spares to restore a main water pipe on Furrow Road.

However, the community successfully sourced all the material needed, purchased the spares with the help of a sponsor at The Grove Mall and got help from a group of municipal workers who worked without overtime pay to help put water back in the taps.

The turning on of the taps was a massive community effort, said Uys, praising the six municipal employees working in a trench for free as the city is not paying them overtime.

Members of the community assisted with jackhammering, lights and purchasing the material and lunch, with Uys not wanting to disclose their identities in fear of them being targeted.

“The ANC in Tshwane’s new policy directive on overtime would have left the 15 000 residents of Equestria without water from Friday to yesterday,” Uys said.

“This was avoided as the municipal workers toiled more than 12 hours overtime without pay,” she explained.

Overtime policy

While the DA fully supports the limitation for the abuse of overtime for maintenance-related matters, this same cannot apply to after-hours water, electricity or sewage issues adversely affecting communities, she said.

“The only solution is a shift system to ensure that there is always someone on duty and overtime cannot be abused,” Uys suggested.

A municipal worker who agreed to speak anonymously said the same was happening in the north of Pretoria, as well as in Tuine, Claremont and Daspoort: constant water leaks and the wait for equipment and supplies.

“The overtime scenario makes it worse. When they have reached 40 hours they may only work more with special permission,” the man explained.

The municipal worker said not everyone got paid overtime and said for every hour above 40 hours, time off was given, not financial compensation.

“For the people, money is what they are looking for, especially because they did not get increases while others started abusing overtime when the increases weren’t given.

“The reality is that there are officials who are just looking for a pay cheque and don’t want to work.

“It is their laxity that makes work more difficult and, in many cases, discourages hard-working officials because their efforts are not noticed and they are not helped by management,” he said.

No water for a week

La Montagne resident Attie Ebersohn said they have been without a constant flow of water for almost a week.

While there were two attempts to restore the water over the weekend, they were still running dry, Ebersohn said.

“Then they told us they turned off the water to avoid further pipes bursting. It’s a poor excuse if one does the repairs correctly and thoroughly.”

Ebersohn said he drove 30km every day to take a shower at his children’s house while he waited for his water to return. “I don’t know who to contact any more,” he shrugged.

The city had not commented by the time of going to print.

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