Rubbish floating down the streets

More rubbish floating down the streets of South Africa. 

 

The municipality of Gonubie has started to clean up the mess caused by the striking workers. Gonubie is a town in Buffalo City, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

Gonubie is under the African National Congress (ANC) with 42 out of the 49 councillors having the control and responsibility of this town. 

In the meantime, the residents were fed up and took action after weeks of no refuse removals by dumping their rubbish at the municipal offices.

 If the government cannot control an essential service like this, what will happen when we have a severe crisis.

 SOURCE:

http://www.dispatchlive.co.za/news/metro-to-dock-half-pay-of-the-striking-workers/

Metro to dock half pay of the striking workers

BUFFALO City Metro’s striking workers will receive only half their pay this month following 12 days of violent strike chaos and destruction.
This was announced by municipal manager Andile Fani, who also ordered the garbage collectors and street cleaners to return to work.
Metro spokesman Keith Ngesi said Fani’s instruction was sent down the chain of command to supervisors who were told to tell workers to “get back to work”.
He also said that workers, who returned to work yesterday, but gathered at their depots and did not work, had lost pay for 12 working days and were at the mercy of the municipality as to when the deductions would be made.
They could be on payday, Friday 24th, or if the metro decided to show compassion, the deductions would be rendered in two months’ time.
South African Municipal Workers’ Union BCM secretary Zolani Ndlela had not responded to questions regarding the docking of pay at the time of going to print yesterday.
Meanwhile, the metro has started collecting trash. A refuse truck was spotted in Quigney on Wednesday night and in Gonubie yesterday accompanied by armed metro police.
Due to security concerns Ngesi said he was not in a position to disclose which areas would have collection.
“We really don’t want to publicise our plans since there are some people hell-bent on sabotaging us,” he said.
He said a decision to hire private companies to collect refuse would be in effect until all employees return to work.
At present, he said about 90% of employees had returned, and 40% (about 2000) were from community services directorate including workers in amenities and environmental health services.
He said the armed escorts were there to protect workers against potential violent attacks. Private companies were also worried about the safety of their resources.
Ngesi admitted the city centre remained a concern and was among the critical areas to be cleaned up.
Other areas to be cleaned up include Quigney, Bunkers Hills and Beacon Bay.
“Due to limited resources, this will happen incrementally. Refuse collection is a challenge because it keeps heaping up and we can’t tell people to keep it in their own yards.”
Asked how much budget had been allocated to pay private companies to pick up trash, Ngesi said payments were based on a day-to-day basis.
He said costs would be communicated to the council and public at a later stage.
Ngesi said he was not aware of any decision to consult the Department of Correctional Services to use inmates to clean up the metro as yet.
He said the damage caused from torching the East London City Hall amounted to R500000.
Further assessments were going to be conducted to calculate damages at the Chiselhurst municipal buildings where procurement documents were allegedly burnt and computers destroyed.
The spokesman said, however, there was no serious damage to the building and that it was likely that most documents were not affected as the metro was migrating to electronic filing of documents. —