Nelson Mandela Bay Muncipality grinds to a halt

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality has all but ground to a halt after striking security officers locked staff out of several key municipal buildings including city hall.

Hundreds of municipal staff arrived at work on Thursday to be confronted by locked doors and strikers toyi-toying inside the buildings.

The issues are believed to relate to conditions of service of lower grade employees.

Municipality spokesperson, Mnuthubanzi Mniki, said that discussions are taking place between security directorate management and muncipal officials.

He also lists the affected municipal buildings.

"City Hall, former Plein Huis, Mfanasekhaya Gqobose (formerly Eric Tindale Building) and Lilian Deidericks Building (formerly Brister House) have all been locked." said Mniki

Meanwhile, the chairperson of the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union, Chris Hay, said that his members as well as the SA Municipal Workers Union, have raised these issues with the city administration over a period of time but they remain unresolved.

"One of the issue are around over time, they have not been paid. The other grievances are their grading, unfortunately that's not an easy thing to deal with. The inherent problem comes from the fact that task has not been implemented, we have been working on it for 10 years and there has been a lack of will power at management level to see that task has been implemented." said Hay.