Workers in the Msunduzi Municipality are under investigation for allegedly sabotaging municipal infrastructure, with concerns about possible political motivations behind the actions.
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Workers in the Msunduzi Municipality, who defected to the Umkhonto Wesizwe party, are facing a probe over allegations of sabotaging municipal infrastructure.
The city revealed during a media briefing yesterday that it has opened a criminal case into the sabotage of its water infrastructure. It further alleged that the acts may be politically motivated. The City and the workers are already at loggerheads over the decision by the municipality to install devices to track the use of municipal vehicles to prevent abuse.
Deputy Mayor Mxolisi Mkhize stated yesterday that City workers had told him to his face that they are now members of the MKP and had vowed to do all that is possible to ensure that the ANC is removed from power in the municipality.
Mkhize, along with Mayor Mzimkhulu Thebolla and municipal manager Felakhe Mndebele, held a briefing yesterday where they spoke about the cause of the water outage in the CBD that was left the Pietermaritzburg High Court and the Deeds Office without water for days. They stated that the outage was not a result of infrastructure failure but was due to coordinated sabotage meant to undermine services and spark mismanagement in the city.
Mkhize spoke of his experience with the City workers that led to the belief that the sabotage was politically motivated. “I had been assigned by the political leadership to work to identify and resolve the water crisis. While we were working in the dead of night to restore the water in some of the affected buildings, I was confronted by our own city workers. These workers told me to my face that they are now members of the MKP and will do all it takes to ensure that we (the ANC) are removed from the municipality.”
He reported the matter back to the political leadership, and a decision was taken to open a criminal case with law enforcement agencies to investigate the incident. The municipality revealed that it is fearful of further damage or sabotage of infrastructure. It said to protect its electricity infrastructure, it has installed sensors, speakers, and CCTV cameras to detect sabotage before any damage can occur.
The City added that its electricity infrastructure was sabotaged in the run-up to the national government elections last year. Thebolla said they strongly believe the sabotage was deliberate, meant to undermine the City leadership, coordinated, and intended to cause a serious crisis.
“For instance, the valves supplying water to the High Court were closed even after we identified and turned them on. The water was still not coming out, and we found that the valves inside the court had also been turned off. Those valves are only handled by the city staff, which tells us there was a level of coordination on this,” he said.
“We regard any unlawful interference with municipal infrastructure in the strongest possible terms. Such acts not only constitute criminal damage to public property but also amount to economic sabotage, particularly when they affect institutions of justice and economic administration.
“We are aware that incidents of infrastructure interference tend to increase during periods of heightened political activity. As such, the municipality has initiated both internal and external investigations into this matter. A criminal case has been opened with the South African Police Service, and should any municipal employee or external party be found to have been involved in acts of sabotage, this will be treated as a dismissible offence and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” said the mayor.
Mndebele spoke of the tensions between the workers and the municipality that emerged after the city installed devices in their vehicles to guard against the abuse of council cars. The Mercury understands that the devices include trackers and other car surveillance equipment.
He said they are going ahead with ensuring that the assets of the municipality are used for what they are meant to. “The union wants us to negotiate. How do you negotiate the installation of a tracker on a municipal vehicle? How do you negotiate the installation of a camera in a municipal vehicle? These measures are intended to ensure that there is no abuse of vehicles.” He said they will also be looking into installing biometric systems to record the coming in and out of workers to ensure they are paid for the time they have worked.
SAMWU local secretary Xolani Ntshangase said the union noted the statement by the Msunduzi mayor alleging sabotage of water infrastructure and linking such acts to employees. “As SAMWU, we are not aware of any sabotage as alleged. No evidence has been presented to the union to substantiate these serious claims. We caution against making broad and unverified statements that may unfairly implicate municipal workers without due process.”
He added that the union does not condone any form of sabotage or criminal conduct and if there is credible evidence of wrongdoing, it must be investigated through proper legal channels.
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