Unemployed people from Gugulethu staged an uprising at the Bakerton Community Centre on Wednesday, claiming that workers from other areas are taking their jobs.
They are unsatisfied with the contractor company that is building the acid mine drainage treatment plant at Grootvlei Shaft Three.
Gugulethu resident Dansile Zwane who was part of the crowd, claims she has handed in her CV three times but she has heard nothing.
Most of the crowd believe bribes are taken to employ people.
Bongani Mtsweni, also present, claims the contractor company has failed the local people.
“They say there are no skilled people in Gugulethu, which isn’t true,” he says, “there are a lot of skilled people in our area.”
He feels the company should get rid of the current employees, who he claims are not locals and train local residents to become skilled workers and employ them.
Another resident Fortunate Malatjie who took part in the discussions is currently attending business skills development training on the construction site.
She feels it is a waste of time as she is still unemployed and have no guarantee the company will employ her after the training.
“I have qualifications in first aid and as a safety representative, why don’t they rather employ me with the skills I have,” she says.
Jaco du Plessis who is recruiting unskilled and semi-skilled workers for the contractor company, had his hands full with all the questions.
He says according to a publication in the Government Gazette unskilled workers are tasked as grade one workers who are general workers.
Grade two to nine are the semi-skilled workers who include carpenters, steel fixers and scaffolding directors.
He says they are well within the parameter as set in the socio-economic document as received by the the sub contractor company.
According to this document there are 101 wards within Gauteng from which they can choose workers for the site.
“We are under no obligation to only employ local people, but have decided to focus on Ekurhuleni wards 67, 72 and 75, to choose workers from,” he says.
He says everything is in place as they have employed 36 unskilled general workers from these three wards.
The prescribed 3% disabled employees are also from these wards and 18 unskilled employees are from ward 72 alone.
“Although we have no fixed amount of employees but we anticipate to have between 200 and 400 people working for us,” he says.
Du Plessis received 5 000 applications for the almost 400 positions.
Ward councillor Ramesh Sheodin says the residents are unhappy the contractor doesn’t employ local people, but it is not true.
He feels the community should allow du Plessis to discuss the issues raised with the contractor and to allow him to come back with answers.
