Johannesburg - The ANC in Joburg says it has asked its deployees in the city to take urgent action in the two-month long Metrobus strike.
The party’s spokesperson in the region, Sasa Manganye, said the City of Joburg mayor had been roped in to act on the matter and he would be releasing a media statement by the end of the week.
The Star understands that workers affiliated to the SA Municipal Workers Union had been reporting to work but unable to drive the buses because of intimidation from striking workers. Metrobus has reportedly lost hundreds of thousands of rand in revenue because of the industrial action.
“They should be able to issue a statement before the end of the week. We have mandated the mayor to intervene and this has taken place. We know that there are developments on the situation,” said Manganye.
He said the ANC would not meet the Democratic Municipal Workers Union of South Africa, which is responsible for the strike, because they were not a recognised union in the City of Joburg.
Meanwhile, Manganye said that the ANC had managed to have successful nomination processes of councillors without violence unlike other regions in the country.
“Generally, our nomination process went well and around 90% of our branches went through, in fact out of 135 branches only seven have not managed to have BGMs. In Johannesburg the situation was better than other provinces.”
Manganye said preparation for the elections were under way despite the negative impact of lockdown regulations and the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Before the president’s announcement, we were continuing with our preparations,” said Manganye.
He added that the region was worried about the increasing numbers of Covid-19 positive cases and said the ANC in the city would try its best to ensure that service delivery continued, even under tough Covid-19 conditions.
“The burning issue is the high level of infections. That is the issue that is preoccupying us, we are trying to ensure that there is compliance. We are the epicentre, for us it is an issue of ensuring compliance so that we can manage the virus,” Manganye said.
He said that the ANC in the region had the tough job of ensuring that the city remained an attractive economic hub in spite of the adjusted level 4 lockdown regulations on some industries such as tourism.
The Star