JOHANNESBURG – The South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) has learnt with great annoyance about the house breaking of our General Secretary, Koena Ramotlou. The GS’s home was broken into in the early hours of the morning yesterday, where his work phone and laptop was stolen. The case has been reported to the police for further investigation.
We believe that this break-in was not a mere coincidence but an intentional and planned attempt to intimidate the GS and source information about the union. Our eager and devoted standpoint on the corruption of municipalities has upset several individuals that we believe are implicated in the corruption.
Our first priority as a union is to stand for the rights of our workers and ensure that municipalities are being held to account where we see that the municipalities do not abide with legislation, that especially affects the livelihoods and well-being of municipal workers.
It has always been the stance of SAMWU that municipalities have become breeding ground for corruption and fraud and that municipalities have become a free pass for all to do as they please.
Our members cannot continue to experience injustices in their workplaces. The recklessness that is displayed by municipal leaders in cheating their employees out of their hard-earned money, which is discernibly too little to sustain their lives, is evident enough to prove that unions still have a lot to fight for.
We call on our members not to be discouraged from reporting instances of corruption as we will further continue to fight for remedial action where corruption is concerned. We are still adamant that SAMWU will take the Auditor General’s report to the Public Protector for investigation of those who are implicated, after the dreadful revelation that 239 out of 257 municipalities have not received clean audits.
As SAMWU we refuse to be intimidated and we will continue to strive to protect and advance the improvement of wages, conditions of service and quality, health and safety of our members’ working environment.
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