The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) in the Free State says it will continue marching and protesting until the mayor, Thanduxolo Khalipha has vacated his position at the Matjhabeng Local Municipality.
They say he is not resolving issues affecting municipal workers.
SAMWU has vowed to intensify its fight until Khalipha steps down as Mayor. They have been calling for this since September, last year.
Disgruntled members of SAMWU plan to approach the court to dissolve the municipality which they say has been under financial stain throughout Khalipha’s tenure. The mayor is accused of being disrespectful and showing no interest in responding to workers’ demands.
“We’re prepared to intensify our action, from here we’ll be involving community structures as we’ve met but we’ve said to community structures, we’re just informing you but give us chance to deal with our own issues. We’ll come back, we will be rolling a programme to communities in a mass meeting, ward by ward involving communities because some of the issues we’re raising, affect the communities directly because they’re impaired on service delivery,” says SAMWU Free State Secretary Tiisetso Mahlatsi.
Labour Federation, COSATU is also supporting the workers.
“The conduct of the mayor makes it impossible for our members to execute their duties, now because of that we feel that there is a need for someone new to be brought in, to come and be able to facilitate that these municipal workers should be able to do their work and their communities should receive services. We are worried and disturbed that all the wrong things that we have brought to the attention of the provincial government and the leadership of the African National Congress, they seem not to see the reason and the facts that we’ve brought to them, that the mayor Ntate Thanduxolo Khalipha, is the one who is creating problems in Matjhabeng,” says Free State COSATU Secretary Monyatso Mahlatsi .
SAMWU says it has forwarded its memorandum of demands to the MEC of Cooperative Governance Ketso Makume for intervention.
Disgruntled members were unhappy when they were denied access into the municipality’s premises and refused to hand over their memorandum from the street.
