By Sihle Mavuso
The ANC-run KwaDukuza (Stanger) local municipality has joined Msunduzi municipality in ending overtime work for its employees.
However, the decision by the municipality just north of Durban has sparked a backlash from its wealthiest citizens in Ballito and the luxury Zimbali resort.
Residents are complaining that ever since the municipality implemented the rule that no employee should do any work after hours, electricity faults are not attended to at night, causing huge inconvenience.
The outcry by residents is contained in a WhatsApp group called Ballito Service Outage, the contents of which were leaked to Scrolla.Africa.
Some of the residents complained that even traffic lights are not fixed on time. In one instance of an outage at Palm Lakes Estate on Wednesday afternoon, the problem was only fixed on Thursday after 10am.
This has left residents fuming, one of whom lashed out at the municipality and claimed that it is “broke”.
The Zimbali resident also alleged that the municipality recently blew R50,000 on a soccer tournament over the Easter weekend.
“Things are bad here, this new overtime policy is affecting us in Ballito — we are not used to not having outages fixed. I wonder why they decided to include Zimbali in this because it spins money for the municipal coffers,” one Ballito resident told Scrolla.Africa.
Municipal spokesperson Sphelelo Ngobese confirmed that they have implemented an overtime curb, but said no complaints have been received from residents of Ballito.
“We have not received complaints from Ballito relating to unplanned outages, other than scheduled load shedding.
“As part of our cost containment strategy, we have put in place a number of measures which have affected teams working beyond official hours, between 6pm and 7am,” Ngobese said.
Pictured above: An aerial view of Zimbali estate, where residents are not enjoying municipal curbs of overtime hours.
Source: zimbali.com
