By Amahle Cele, Khanyisa Khenese and Luvuyo Mjekula
Makana Municipality is not in a position to pay its workers overtime wages, and until they find the money, the water and electricity challenges plaguing Makhanda will continue.
Municipal manager Pumelelo Kate made these admissions in an interview with Grocott’s Mail this week.
To honour their financial obligations, Makana management is planning to go back to the drawing board – ramp up its revenue collection, Kate said.
Kate said the municipality had instructed the chief financial officer (CFO) “to ensure we collect money as quickly as possible so that we pay the workers their money owed for overtime”.
He put the blame for the crisis on the workers’ strike. “The whole problem is the fact that workers are refusing to work overtime.”
He said the problem started on 23 August when workers realised their overtime pay for July had not been paid along with their August salaries.
“They had an illegal protest on 23 August. Management addressed them, indicating the municipality’s challenges in connection with finances and cashflow. The municipality currently is not in a position to pay overtime due to cashflow constraints,” Kate said.
“They took a decision they would not work overtime until they are paid their outstanding monies.”
The decision is severely affecting the supply of electricity and water to the community of Makana.
Kate said August’s windy weather did not help the municipality’s situation, causing electricity outages due to trees falling on power lines and wildfires erupting. “This called for work to be done beyond normal working hours, but most of the electricians were not prepared to carry out that function and a few managers had to do the job. This meant the managers were overwhelmed, leading to backlogs.”
In respect to water, it was a similar issue. “We restrict access to water at times to allow reservoirs to fill up so people can get water the following day. We close the valves in the evening so that water is not reticulated and reservoirs can pick up volume. The valves are reopened in the early hours of the morning, but the workers refused to carry out that exercise.”
Asked about alleged instances of intimidation of certain workers, Kate said: “We have officially engaged some of the workers on water to continue working until we resolve the money issue. Some of them are prepared to work but feel they will be at risk as they were threatened and violated in the past and their lives were at risk.
“They said it would be too dangerous to undertake any work when others are discouraging all workers not to work overtime. We do believe they are being threatened, hence they are unable to assist the municipality.”
He said they were alive to elements trying to frustrate the municipality into not achieving its objective to ensure communities get water. “We are aware that there will be mischievous people that will attempt to reverse what we are trying to do, meaning we need to be vigilant.”
He said not being able to provide basic service to the people is concerning. “It is a very worrying situation. Hence we are trying to resolve this as quickly as possible so that we don’t subject our people to these conditions. We are working round the clock to make sure this matter is reversed.”
Makhanda was this week plunged deeper into crisis with severe water shortages and power outages hitting residents and institutions hard, leading to struggles at old age homes, schools sending pupils home early, the local magistrate’s court adjourning cases and Rhodes University suspending some of its academic programmes today.
Rhodes’ staff and students marched to the City Hall earlier today to register their anger and dissatisfaction with the municipality’s failures.
The problems began at the start of the week, with some areas of the city experiencing intermittent water outages that have now stretched into days.
On Monday, a small number of employees of the Department of Electricity in the Makana Municipality gathered outside the municipality offices planning their next move after resolving not to work after hours anymore. The employees demanded immediate overtime payment after being unpaid for two months, and they declared to no longer work extra shifts until their grievances were resolved.
The unpaid wages have caused unrest among the workers, who feel that the municipality has failed to uphold their end of the agreement. This has led to a meeting with the municipal manager which was held on Monday. During this meeting, the workers were informed that the municipality does not have money to for overtime remuneration.
As of yet, there has been no resolution to the issue, and the workers are demanding payment as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, frustrated residents of Makhanda have been taking steps to escalate their concerns to the pronvicial government while others have gone on to report their complaints by calling the Presidential Hotline.
There have also been growing calls for law enforcement to intervene, to stop the alleged intimidation of workers by others.
To alleviate the suffering, DA councillor Cary Clark arranged for Gift of the Givers Foundation to help Makhanda residents with water and the popular NGOs’ trucks were spotted dishing out water this week.
