Maxie Badenhorst, Hennenman:
In July I will be a councillor for ten years, and in my nine and a half years to date I have never experienced anything like what we are going through currently.
Service delivery is at an all-time low and the support we are getting from management and the mayor is appalling.
Our e-mails are not being responded to and complaints on councillors’ groups stay unanswered. Information groups are closed without informing councillors why, leaving everyone in the dark.
What is the purpose of limiting overtime if workers of the Matjhabeng Municipality can manipulate the system without any consequences, costing the municipality thousands in wasted water and infrastructure damage?
Earlier this year an instruction was issued by the mayor, Thanduxolo Khalipha, that overtime will be limited to 60 hours per month per official, as per labour regulations, and that no refuse removal will take place over weekends.
Whether this decision, although within the legal requirements of the law, was thoroughly thought through and handled correctly, is another question.
It has led to major disruption in the refuse removal and infrastructure departments and service delivery in general.
Since this decision was taken, refuse removal in certain areas came to a complete standstill and resulted in areas not being serviced for several weeks on end – and illegal dumping becoming the norm.
Worst of all is that water leaks are left unattended for a whole weekend, as workers are playing the system by not attending to leakages reported early in the day and then forcing the municipality to approve additional overtime to fix the leak after hours.
This month, over a period of four days, this has happened twice in Hennenman.
Two water leaks, both quite extensive, were reported before 08:00 on a Friday morning.
At 14:39 the first leak was fixed but nothing was said about the second leak in Annie Street, and what kept them busy until close of business.
Saturday morning it was reported that the leak had never been attended to and that water was still streaming down Annie Street.
In response to an enquiry the supervisor said they were unable to finish the job (yet they never showed up on the Friday to do the job) and that they have reached their overtime limit of 60 hours.
He said they would only be able to attend to the problem on Monday.
This caused thousands of liters of water to go to waste without blinking an eye, and not taking into account an outstanding account in excess of R4 billion already owed to Sedibeng Water.
The supervisor was then requested to get permission from the director for additional overtime to be able to fix the leak, but on Sunday the leak was still not attended to.
A message was sent to the municipal manager (MM), who undertook to take up the matter with the director.
At about 16:00 on Sunday, photos and videos were forwarded to the MM, the director of infrastructure as well as the manager in the department, to request urgent attention.
After not receiving any response from the MM or the director, a message was sent to the mayor for assistance.
A few minutes later the mayors’ office phoned, requesting more information, as well as the photos and video footage. Assurance was given that the matter would be attended to.
By Monday morning streams of water were still running down the street, damaging infrastructure and private property.
At just before 09:00 the resident confirmed that the workers were there to fix the leak and at 11:32 it was confirmed that the leak had been fixed.
A two and a half hour job that could have saved the municipality thousand of rands was neglected because of bad decision making, greedy officials, no work ethic and pride and poor supervision and planning.
This behaviour is painting a clear picture of how municipal officials are trying to force the municipality to pay them overtime in excess of the 60 hours.
They will do anything in their power to reach the 60 hours as soon as possible because they are confident that councillors and residents will insist that the leakages be repaired.
This attitude forces someone to sign for the overtime.
But managers are not prepared to approve the overtime, as the mayor has warned that anyone who approves overtime beyond the 60 hours will have to pay it from their own pocket.
Neither the director nor the MM is prepared to take the decision, and the mayor is not willing to give in to the demands of the workers.
Who suffers in the end? The residents who keep on paying their bills, but get nothing in return.
It is time that competent supervisors, managers, senior managers, directors and an accounting officer be employed who can draw up overtime schedules to control it.
They must be able to take control of officials who are holding this municipality to ransom in order for them to uphold their lavish lifestyles with the overtime that they are milking from this municipality.
