Mayor intervenes as workers’ strike plunges PSJ into chaos
UNDER-FIRE Port St Johns mayor Lindelwa Rolobile yesterday sent a municipal delegation to meet with striking municipal employees.
This comes less than 24 hours after the town was turned into a landfill site after angry hawkers gathered rubbish which had been piling on the streets for weeks and dumped it in front of all municipal buildings on Wednesday.
Hawker Nophumzile Nomveku said: “We have children to feed and send to school but instead we are losing customers simply because they [PSJ municipal bosses] have not collected rubbish since December.
“I had to stop selling cooked food because no one is buying it. ”
Her words were echoed by fellow hawker Silumko Magopeni, who said they had gone to complain to the municipality on several occasions.
“Instead of trying to sell our products, we have been swatting away flies because most of the uncollected refuse had started to rot,” he said.
Rolobile yesterday said the council had started addressing some of the issues raised by striking workers.
She said she had sent a delegation in the morning to update workers on some of those issues that had been addressed already.
South African Municipal Workers Union provincial deputy chairman Lebo Mangxa said among the issues they had raised with Xasa was the dissolution of the whole PJS council.
“There is no leadership in this municipality and we are awaiting the ANC to come and sit down with us on the matter.” —