Service for Sharks Board crew

THE memorial service for Richards Bay-based KZN Sharks Board employees Richard Gumede and Mandla Gumede will be held in Durban today (Thursday).

The service for the men, who drowned during a shark net maintenance operation last Wednesday, will be held at 11am at eThekwini Community Church.

Meanwhile, the search for their missing colleague, Siyabonga Gabela, is still ongoing.

ORS Sea Border officers have conducted numerous searches around the piers and dolosse, including drone searches, to no avail.

They have widened the sea search to include the area from New Mouth to Nhlabane.

In light of the tragedy, leaving Richards Bay with no one to carry out routine servicing of the shark nets, they have been lifted and bathing is banned.

Elsewhere in the province Sharks Board employees again downed tools, demanding a 15% wage increase across the board.

‘Their demands must be within our budget allocation,’ said Harry Mbambo, who is responsible for business development at the Sharks Board.

‘We can’t offer something that does not exist. We offered the workers a double digit increase.’

Shark nets at beaches elsewhere in the province have not been lifted, and the Sharks Board said it would implement alternative means of servicing them.