Taps run dry as workers mutiny
Workers’ standoff leaves parts of city without water
AREFUSAL by municipal staff to work on weekends without extra compensation saw large parts of the city without water, and residents in a frenzy. The taps in Kwazakhele, New Brighton and Govan Mbeki town- ships ran dry between Friday night and Saturday morning, while residents in much of Lorraine were without water from early yesterday.
Nelson Mandela Bay mayor Athol Trollip said sabotage had also not been ruled out and investigations were under way as to why a valve in Govan Mbeki Township had been switched off.
By yesterday afternoon, several water tankers had been set up in Kwazakhele, New Brighton and Lorraine, while water supply was restored to Govan Mbeki.
“After ongoing infrastructure breakdown assessments, a closed valve has been discovered for the Govan Mbeki supply,” Trollip said.
“This is alarming and heightens the suspicion of sabotage.”
Mayoral chief of staff Kristoff Adelbert said technicians were still trying to determine the cause of the problem in Kwazakhele and New Brighton.
“Our teams are assessing the infrastructure in those areas.”
Lorraine resident Willem Steynberg said the burst water pipe in front of his Metz Avenue home had been reported to the municipality by his neighbour early yesterday morning.
However, water continued gushing out of the pipe until the valve was finally switched off shortly after 1.30pm.
Steynberg said two municipal workers had arrived, only to inform them that repair work would only start today because they refused to work without being paid overtime.
But as angry residents continued to take to social media yesterday over what they described as a lack of service delivery, Trollip refused to be strong-armed by striking municipal workers.
“We will not be held ransom by people who won’t work productively during ordinary work hours but then want double pay on weekends,” the mayor said.
“A new overtime policy which seeks to prevent future auditorgeneral [AG] findings in this regard has resulted in some officials refusing to work beyond regular business hours.”
However, he said the new policy still allowed for artisans who earned below the R206 000 a year threshold to get full statutory overtime benefits.
“Some staff are asking to be paid more than the normal rate of pay for overtime. The metro simply cannot afford that and the AG has already identified this as an issue,” Trollip said.
“There are some people who have been exploiting the overtime dispensation for many years at a grave cost to service delivery.”
Trollip said they would do everything in their power to overcome the standoff.
Lorraine resident Megan Gerber posted on The Herald Facebook page that her household had been without water since the early hours of yesterday morning.
“We promptly pay our water bill. The infrastructure cannot handle the volumes, yet more townhouse developments are being built. Totally unacceptable.”
Ndyebo Madama said there was no water in “black people’s areas” because the situation had not been properly investigated.