Financial Mail and Business Day

City of Joburg staff evicted

Staff Writer

Staff of the City of Johannesburg’s finance group were evicted from their offices on Wednesday as the cashstrapped DA-led municipality struggles to pay its bills.

The employees, who occupy at least four floors of a building on 75 Helen Joseph Street in the city centre, were ordered out of their offices during working hours.

The municipality is battling a financial crisis and the council rejected a R2bn loan from the Development Bank of Southern Africa amid bickering between the governing coalition and opposition parties.

A worker at the revenue services department said the eviction was “abruptly” communicated by their operational managers.

“We were not given even an hour to evacuate the building. We did not even have time to source transportation to take our office belongings,” the worker said.

“They told us the city has not been paying rent for eight months or so, and the landlord started switching off the electricity supply on Tuesday.”

DISRUPT SERVICES

Staff representative Karabo Ramahuma said the eviction was likely to disrupt services.

“Those employees are a key component of service delivery because they deal with revenue collection and customer query resolution. This means that the city’s ability to collect rates and taxes will be hampered,” Ramahuma said.

“The city has made a commitment to increase its revenue collection ability ... and today a department that has the function to do that has been evicted from work.”

WORK FROM HOME

Employees with Wi-Fi connections in their houses apparently have been told to work from home, while others will use alternative buildings rented by the city.

This is not the first time the City of Johannesburg has lost access to property and facilities after failing to pay bills.

Vehicles belonging to Avis were withdrawn recently after contract and payment issues, while Afrirent Fleet Management removed its vehicles two weeks, saying bills were overdue.

Director of mayoral communications Mabine Seabe said the matter was administrative, not political.

The office of the city manager had not responded to queries at the time of publication.

NATIONAL

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2022-12-08T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-08T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://tisobg.pressreader.com/article/281595244566659

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