There is water, Ugu visitors told

Taps run dry after ‘sabotage’

THE ongoing water crisis which has led to Premier Willies Mchunu declaring Ugu District Municipality a disaster area, will not affect tourism and the hospitality industry.

Taps in parts of the district have been dry for about two weeks because of alleged sabotage of the water infrastructure by municipal employees.

This, however, will not impact on the industry during the coming holidays, Justine Mackrory, chief executive of Ugu South Coast Tourism, said yesterday.

“I’m confident that the matter will be resolved before the beginning of the holidays, for the sake of local residents.

“As for tourism and hospitality areas, there is supply of water in the form of reservoirs or other means. We advise visitors not to cancel their bookings because we are, and would be, up and running by the time they hit our shores,” Mackrory said.

By yesterday evening, Mchunu was still in engagements with organised labour after addressing the community about the numerous meetings he had had with the municipality and various departments including Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.

Leonard Ngcobo, DA councillor in the area, said the southern areas of Ugu were the hardest hit because they were supplied by the municipality, while the northern parts – supplied by Umgeni Water – were not.

“Umgeni Water is very efficient. We recently raised a motion in council to have all the bulk water services of the municipality transferred to Umgeni Water, but we were outvoted,” Ngcobo said.

“Since the strike started about two weeks ago over labour relations matters including salary deductions, there has been tampering and damaging of the water infrastructure, and for the past eight days, damage is estimated at about R19 million.

“The costs include hiring of security to accompany water tanks and technicians hired to fix the damaged or broken valves,” Ngcobo said.

Strike

In March, some employees at the municipality embarked on an illegal strike and the district informed them through their union, the SA Municipal Workers’ Union ( Samwu), that a nowork-no-pay principle would apply, and salary deductions would be effected in May.

Most of those involved in the strike were technical staff who disrupted service delivery to the public following the deductions, Dhanpalan Naidoo, Ugu municipal manager, said.

“They knew that their strike over capped overtime was illegal and there was a court interdict.

“We suspended 11 shop stewards for insulting and intimidating fellow workers who wanted to do their work, and those in support of the strike demanded their reinstatement.

“That will not happen, but we will make them part of the negotiations, and thereafter charges against them will be dealt with. We can’t succumb to lawlessness,” Naidoo said.

He said the millions caused in damages was money the municipality did not have.

“Schools, hospitals, clinics and other public facilities were affected by this deliberate sabotage. We are not coping and even though this is a human-made disaster, the premier declared it as such and has called for everything to done legally until an amicable solution is found,” he said.

Fanie Strydom, spokesperson for the Ugu Ratepayers’ Association, said the meeting with Mchunu was “more of a positive note”.

“This was one of the numerous meetings the premier had with Ugu management and organised labour, and in today’s (yesterday) meeting he was giving feedback to the community.

“The premier demanded that immediate action be taken, and should include more policing and investigations on vandalism,” Strydom said.

“A directive was given for talks between municipal management and organised labour to start immediately, and this will be facilitated by the premier. We hope that Premier Mchunu will be able to resolve this impasse,” he said.

Samwu general-secretary Simon Mathe said the union had declared a dispute with the SA Local Government Association (Salga) at the Local Government Bargaining Council.

Samwu demands a single year agreement, a 15% acrossthe-board salary increase or R3 155, whichever is greater, an across-the-board R2 000 housing allowance and a R10 000 minimum wage for the sector.