Strikers must be charged

‘Disgruntled Resident’ writes:-

THE strike by the municipal workers will no doubt be resolved eventually, and we’ll get on with our lives. But I wonder if anyone will eventually be held responsible for the damage inflicted on municipal property, damage that has affected all the residents of Vryheid, Bhekuzulu and Lakeside. I bet that no one, not one single person, will be charged at the police station for this malicious damage to property, and I bet that if by some miracle someone is charged, that it will never come to court, and that no one will be penalised accordingly. And I bet that no one, not one single municipal employee, will be suspended, let alone fired as a result of these criminal acts of malicious damage to property, and if by some miracle someone is called to book, they will be suspended on full pay for months on end, and then quietly reinstated with no punishment at all. They won’t fire them because then the others will strike and demand their reinstatement, and the municipality will buckle and the lawless will again have got their way. This is the way the country work nowadays, no one takes responsibility, and once again crimes go unpunished, and then we sit around and moan about the high crime rate. Those workers should be punished, and since these were acts of sabotage, they should be sent to prison. If we don’t do that, if it is evident that you can get away with destroying a town’s water supply, then it will happen again when we have the next dispute between the municipality and its workers. Someone must be held to account, and not with a simple and useless “slap on the wrist”. They are criminals and must be treated as such. And yet, we all know, don’t we, that that is not going to happen, and like I say, then we wonder at our hideously high crime rate.