Future looks bleak for retrenched workers

A private investigator probing the disputed retrenchment of 155 former Germiston City Council employees has painted a bleak picture about the future of his clients and that of their dependents, almost 23 years after they were dismissed.

According to independent investigator Tabo Buzwa, many of these employees, most of them well into retirement age, are now on the verge of losing their bonded homes after failing to meet their repayment obligations with the banks.

“Many of them have been unable to find work and repay their bond since they were retrenched by the old Germiston City Council in 1993, because they were promised that their retrenchment would be reversed by the new government of the African National Congress which was voted into power with the late Nelson Mandela as the first president of a democratic South Africa in April, 1994.

However, Buzwa, told Kathorus MAIL that, while the new Ekurhuleni municipality managed to re-employ some of the more than 300 employees, a total of 155 ungraded workers were not taken back and have remained unemployed since.

He described how some of them have since died of old age or ill-health or have simply relocated to their respective homelands due to old age or poor health or both.

Relating the difficulties faced by his clients and their families, Buzwa said many of these former Germiston City Council employees saw their hopes of a better life for themselves and their children in a new democratic South Africa evaporate into thin air. “We are talking about people who had plans to send their children to university and of paying off their mortgages with the money they had expected to be paid by the Germiston City Council after they were retrenched in 1993,” explained Buzwa, who said that none of the 155 he now represents were ever paid what was due to them by the old municipality.