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‘Pure criminals’ behind spate of attacks on City of Tshwane employees delivering services in Soshanguve

Details

tshwane thumb100 BusinessLive reports that the City of Tshwane has blamed criminality for a spate of attacks and robberies perpetrated against employees delivering municipal services in Soshanguve, one of the most impoverished areas dogged by service delivery challenges in the metro.

Tshwane metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba appealed to communities to stop the assault, attacks and robberies on its employees. He advised that city workers were refusing to go to Jukulyn in Soshanguve, which was notorious for the attacks on employees, without a police escort. Bokaba indicated that the reasons for the attacks varied: “They range from pure criminality and frustration with prolonged power outages ... the attacks are pure criminality as our workers are robbed of their cellphones and money. In the past three months alone we have had 11 attacks on our workers.” Tshwane, which has been experiencing power outages in past weeks, said in a statement on 20 March that its technical teams had managed to restore power to most areas. In an earlier statement on 18 March, executive mayor Randall Williams said the metro faced a series of challenges from “small groups of illegally striking workers” affiliated to SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu). Samwu Tshwane regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane denied that Samwu members were on strike and lashed out at Williams for “driving a wedge between workers and community members”. He said as a result of the “lies” that Samwu members were on strike, disgruntled residents of Jukulyn in Soshanguve were assaulting city employees and robbing them of their personal belongings.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive


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