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A major clash with potential physical confrontation and violence was narrowly averted between the Emfuleni Local Municipality (ELM) and Rand Water over a third bank attachment by the water utility as their top structures this week hastily met to hammer out a new debt agreement.
A top-level Monday crisis meeting nipped a planned motor vehicle convoy blockade and siege of Rand Water Head Office in Glenvista, Johannesburg, by angry ELM employees and supporters in the bud, municipal and other sources said.
A joint media statement from both Rand Water and ELM is expected this week highlighting a way out of the deadlock.
Other disruptive wildcat protest actions against Rand Water were also being planned by ELM employees and other stakeholders, but not in any official capacity, Vaalweekblad has been told.
Another wildcat blockade would have been the second over the past few years since then ELM Executive Mayor Jacob Khawe and his entire top management and hundreds of employees drove vehicles to Rand Water Head Office and blockaded the premises, also over debt default repayments.
Municipal employees, unions and ELM management fear three bank account attachments by Rand Water since December – seizing an estimated R330 million – could result in salaries and contractors not paid at February-month-end and also asset-stripping by Rand Water of municipal infrastructure.
A major driver of tension is the widespread fear in ELM circles that Rand Water will also attach the Sebokeng Waste Water Plant or similar infrastructure thus further incapacitating Metsi-a Lekoa, the ELM water and waste management entity. Building up Metsi is a major objective of the Vaal River sewage project.
However, the danger of asset attachments seems to have subsided due to confusion as to who the real owner of the infrastructure as the waste infrastructure belongs to Gauteng Province and not ELM, said experts. Organised business has demanded that ELM and Rand Water find a solution to the current crisis and said it was clear the management incompetence of ELM CFO Andile Dyakala was to blame, as with recurring debt crises with bulk utility providers such as Eskom over the years. The Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) has laid the blame for the crisis at ELM’s door.
“The ELM CFO Andile Dyakala should have been fired years ago and many investigations against him remain – now we sit with the consequences of a lack of consequence management,” said GTCOC CEO Klippies Kritzinger.
