Union supports Mashaba

THE South African Municipal Workers Union, which recently celebrated the re-integration of state owned entities such as Pikitup and City Power back into the city, has come out in support of Mayor Mashaba’s decision to sack MMC for Environmental and Infrastructure Services, Anthony Still.

Mashaba had announced to the media that he and Still held different views on how to deal with allegations of corruption and fraud in City Power. When Still spoke about the matter, he revealed that Mashaba fired him for his refusal to suspend City Power CEO Sicelo Xulu.

SAMWU’s stance

“It is our view that the recall of Mr Still as MMC for Environmental and Infrastructure Services was a correct decision and we fully support it. We hereby state that the investigations are about public funds that would have helped service delivery and improved the salaries of our members.

“Accordingly, anyone who shares the view that to conduct the investigation on large sums of public funds is a waste of money [is] to be viewed as penny-wise and pound-foolish. Zero [tolerance] approach to corruption is invaluable and we support it.

“At City Power, the investigation was supposed to be jointly conducted by SAMWU and City Power as per the agreement that was reached. That never happened, as the representative of SAMWU was denied access to information by City Power.

“City Power then investigated themselves and pronounced the results thereof that exonerated themselves. Again the investigation report was never made available to us as a stakeholder with a direct interest in the matter.

“It is against this background that we brought those issues to the attention of Mr Still through petitions, letters and meetings. Regrettably, Mr Still showed no interest at all – he informed us that he was not aware about Pikitup issues including the purported investigation report and also he [wouldn’t] investigate the Managing Director of City Power as he was already cleared by the above-mentioned investigation report.

“This was a déjà vu experience as the former MMC, Matshidiso Mfikoe, also did not want to investigate the Pikitup MD, citing the same grounds – that she was cleared by their investigation.

“Additionally, Mr Still issued a memorandum directly addressed to the workers at City Power informing them that he [was] not going to attend to their concerns as he [was] 100 per cent supporting the Managing Director of City Power based on the report that purportedly cleared him. That left the workers perplexed by the attitude of Mr Still towards fighting fraud and corruption.”

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