Laudium residents’ power restored at last
“We will not allow the work of the city to be derailed by small groups of individuals who seek to prevent their fellow colleagues from carrying out their duties.”
Electricity was restored on Monday in Laudium where residents had been without power for the best part of two weeks.
Naeem Patel, ANC councillor of ward 61, confirmed that the power was restored yesterday after residents had been without power since Tuesday, March 15.
The metro was not able to restore the power outage, which was caused by cable theft in the area, because of the ongoing municipal strike.
Rekord reported earlier non-striking metro teams were intimidated by those striking, and subsequently the metro was not able to gain access to the area.
The strike has been characterised by violent protests, damage to property, intimidation of non-striking employees, and even assault.
The Tshwane administration secured a court interdict this week against the unlawful march.
“As the city has continued to face some disruptions from the illegal strike, the municipality has begun issuing notices of the intention to terminate employees who have been involved in the unlawful and unprotected strike since March 15,” said metro spokesperson Sipho Stuurman.
He said striking employees were represented by the South Africa Municipal Workers Union (Samwu).
“They have had until Thursday, March 24 to provide written reasons why their services should not be terminated.”
Stuurman said the metro will thereafter take a decision on whether to terminate their services or not.
He said the vast majority of Tshwane employees were committed to their work and to serving the residents of the city, such that they are willing to place their lives at risk in the face of intimidation, threats or even physical violence against their lives.
“One of our colleagues, Benjamin Dube,” said Stuurman, “ended up in intensive care after being attacked on the weekend after supporting teams, who were responding to power outages in Soshanguve, were assaulted.”
He said their thoughts were with him and his family as he recovers.
“We will not allow the work of the city to be derailed by small groups of individuals who seek to prevent their fellow colleagues from carrying out their duties.”
ALSO READ: Striking metro employees get order to halt strike action
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