Corruption in local government, poor levels of service delivery and declining standards of working conditions for its members are the main concerns of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu), traditionally a powerhouse in municipalities around South Africa.
Samwu, which says its members have plummeted from 250Â 000 in 1994 to 180Â 000, believes service delivery at municipal level is failing because of the casualisation of labour, the privatisation of service functions and nepotism by council officials.
Samwu officials also complain of being sidelined in the delivery process and accuse the government of a lack of coordination.
Samwu media officer Anna Majavu slates government strategy on service delivery as being to ‘spend as little as possible and privatise as much as possible†and having a focus on cost recovery.
She said: ‘From Samwu’s point of view the state of service delivery is bad. Some services have been privatised and the private companies delivering these services only want to make a huge profit at the expense of workers and communities.â€
First vice-president of Samwu Xolile Nxu said the ‘very bad†state of local government has not helped service delivery and this has been worsened by staff cuts.
‘The quality of service delivery has dropped. People expected services to be rendered, but they are not up to standard and it is worse in the townships,†said Nxu.
The trend is for permanent posts to be shifted to project-specific work for which people are not permanently employed. This means overall maintenance suffers.
Nxu said the loss of 70Â 000 members since 1994 has been the result of this kind of restructuring.
‘How can you expect to improve services when you are not creating jobs?†asked Nxu.
Samwu is campaigning against prepaid meters, seen as a symbol of privatisation, which Nxu believes has worsened the situation at local government level.
‘Once you use the private sector the element of corruption comes in and, if there is a tender, friends of councillors win the tender and get employed.†He blames the economic policies of government for failing to pump enough money into areas of need.
He said poor service delivery contributes to the growing number of protests owing to services not reaching people.
This community anger is often targeted at Samwu — placing the lives of their members at risk — because, if people do not get services, Samwu members are the first to be attacked as they are visible in the field.
Through the collective bargaining process, the union is fighting against restructuring processes that affect its workers and it is campaigning for vacant posts to be filled, he said.
Samwu president Petrus Mashishi said: ‘The government is talking about capacity. You can’t talk about capacity while you can’t fill posts. We need manpower to make things happen.â€
Mashishi said for local government to function effectively Samwu would like to see a stand against corruption at local government level and greater power given to local government to deliver housing.
Majavu said Samwu sought to play a greater role in service delivery but has been rejected.
She said Samwu believes that, because their members have been delivering services for years, they have a good idea about what is needed and have come up with ’emergency plans†to address a lack of services. These involve reorganising the workplace and municipal budgets, with a greater focus on township areas.
She said Samwu would like to see many more workers moved from working in the suburbs to working in the townships.
She said municipalities have made the service delivery situation worse by employing too many managers and not enough workers. ‘Every time a general worker dies or resigns or retires, he or she is not replaced,†she said, adding that this creates a crisis situation because there are too few workers. — West Cape News