STEMERE PROMISES MORE ACTION TO BENEFIT LOCAL CONTRACTORS
Forum storms municipal offices on Tuesday morning with some wielding assault rifles, workers question the capacity of the security company in the gates of the municipal offices
This is our time. We are now going to push for a programme that is going to benefit us as the local contractors. We are sick and tired of talking to people who do not want to listen to us, we are now turning the next page, a page that is going to determine our future as Matatiele contractors. This is what was said by Teboho Stemere in an interview with The Informer on Tuesday. Stemere was speaking on behalf of a group of men who stormed Matatiele Local Municipality offices on Tuesday morning. According to Municipal spokesperson Luncedo Walaza the men forced themselves into one of the municipal boardrooms wielding assault rifles and demanding to see the management. Stemere denied that there was any assault rifle during their visit to the Municipal offices, but some of his colleagues that spoke to The Informer confirmed that there were assault rifles.
“We asked why are they bringing guns in a government institution and they told us that they are coming with their body guards”, Walaza said. One of the workers said “I nearly died, it was the first time for me to see that kind of a weapon live. The aggressiveness to those who were holding those rifles was unbelievable”, said the worker
According to reports this pandemonium began on Monday during the closing of the tender box of one of the advertised tenders and opening of the bid documents. The local contractors could not agree on wheather to open the documents or not. One of the groups was saying documents must be opened and the other one was opposing that.
Those who opposed the opening of the documents based their argument on the fact that they are in engagement with the municipal leadership because of wrong things that concern the tenders. According to them it was agreed in their previous engagements that no tender must be issued until the problems be resolved. Stemere did not want to comment more on this issue.
Speaking on behalf of the municipality Walaza condemned the incident which he said was conducted by the members of the forum. “The action traumatised workers especially those who are females”, said Walaza.
On Thursday the same group used their vehicles to block the entrance of the municipal offices. There were engagements between the Mayor and the group on the same day. Commenting about this Walaza said representative of the forum and the management was going to meet on Wednesday to deal with the complaints of the forum.
In the same vein municipal workers had to break from work for about an hour to discuss the issue of their security. Workers believed that they are not protected when so many incidents that threaten their live continue to happen in the institution. Municipal Manager Lizo Matiwane promised that he is going to attend to their concerns about their security.
