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The IFP calls on the eThekwini city’s waste and water employees to take their frustration to the ballot box on the 8th of May after the eThekwini Municipality has let them down. This comes after salary increases were made for MK vets while theirs were ignored.

Activities iin Durban city centre have been disrupted as the eThekwini City’s water and waste water employees are protesting , demanding to be paid the same as MK veterans employed by the city. The ANC in the eThekwini municiplaity must take the blame for all the disruptions that happens in the CBD. Their ill-advise dicesion has resulted to this impasse. This is an indication that the eThekwini Municipality is facing a serious problem of incompetent leadership. Now it is the duty of all workers in the eThekwini to ensure that the ANC is removed from power and competent leadership that will listen and respect the need of workers in appointed. The only party that is competent in doing that is the IFP.

The protesters’ bone of contention was the city’s “lack of interest” in attending to their demand to have their salary levels elevated from grade 4 to grade 10 - the same level that some Umkhonto we Sizwe Military Veterans Association (MKMVA) members were promoted to within a year of serving the department as general assistants. The general staff is being paid more than their senior counterparts and union leaders are being ignored when they made attempts to address this.

This is a clear indication that the eThekwini Municipality led by Mayor Zandile Gumede does not care about the wellbeing of municipal employees. The Mayor is afraid of the MK Vets that’s why she allowed for increases. Therefore, it is high time that the unhappy municipal employees to vote out the ANC in the eThekwini municipality as it has yet again let them down.

How can they continue voting for a party that doesn’t care about their families? How they can vote for a party that is led by leaders who only care about their stomachs not about the masses? It doesn’t make any sense to protest the eThekwini Municipality that is led by the ANC then again during the election vote for the same party that has let you down.

The IFP further demands that if the eThekwini municipality has money to increase salaries for MK vets who are alleged to be incompetent then this must also apply to the city’s waste and water employees.

The increases are surely in breach of the Municipal Finance Management Act and the Public Finance Management Act. Whoever is responsible for policing compliance with these pieces of legislation - presumably the Co-operative Governance Department - is duty-bound to investigate what appears to be a travesty.

Issued by The IFP