Lekwa municipality have been plagued with three weeks of protests.
Several groups have voiced their anger at the Lekwa municipality. Residents have also taken to the streets to show their frustration at the lack of service delivery in Lekwa.
Recently the Mayor and the MM were removed from office by a motion tabled by the DA only to be replaced with the same persons by the ANC. This also angered residents of Lekwa.
SAMWU have different reasons for their strike.
The Bulletin spoke to representatives of SAMWU in Lekwa in front of the town hall. The streets were littered with refuse that the residents dumped the previous night. Someone set fire to the refuse. The smoke and flames resembled a Hollywood apocalypse type of movie.
The SAMWU representatives were very clear that they demand action and would not cease their action before an acceptable response from the municipality has been received.
Some of the issues included covered areas such as personal protective equipment (PPE) for the workers as well as danger pay.
They demanded that the vehicle as made roadworthy. Most of the municipal fleet are not roadworthy are also dangerous to travel in with worn tires.
There are questions on the continual use of external lawyers when the municipality have a lawyer on their staff.
The workers also demanded that the negotiated salary increase be implemented. The municipality refuses to implement the collective agreement.
No plan are in place for the COVID-19 pandemic although the workers are promised a plan. They demand that the plan made available.
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They also demand that the Municipal Manager be put on special leave and a full forensic investigation be done into his actions in the municipality.
These are just a few of the demands that SAMWU gave the Municipality.
During the interview one of the SAMWU members, Jonny Nkosi, stated that the municipality upgraded the council chambers with new partitioning in line with COVID-19 guidelines. He alleged that a Durban company did the job. He also alleged that the MM hails from KZN.
The costs for the upgrade were approximately R1,6m according to Jonny. It would appear that even though the chambers were upgraded the MM refuses to hold any meetings there, even at the current level of the lockdown (level 3). She insists on virtual meetings via zoom.
The problems of Lekwa will not disappear soon and the reluctance of the provincial leadership to intervere in Lekwa as well as a number of other towns in Mpumalanga such as Govan Mbeki Municipality, Ermelo and Piet Retief will prove to be very costly ones for the people of Mpumalanga.
The resentment and anger of people in towns such as Lekwa, Piet Retief Ermelo, Bethal, Kinross and Leandra is slowly starting to become a huge headache for the municipal leadership.
Let us hope that intervention will be implemented soon.
