13 May 2020
Contractors and workers protest outside the Gamtoos Irrigation Board offices in Joubertina on 11 March over unpaid salaries. Archive photo: Mkhuseli Sizani
Offices of the Gamtoos Irrigation Board (GIB) were reopened on Friday in Joubertina in the Eastern Cape.
The offices were shut down on 11 March by 29 contractors and about 150 angry workers over unpaid December salaries. But last Thursday, the Koukamma mayor, contractors, and the advisory committee of The Working for Water Programme reached an agreement to allow GIB to reopen in order to process Covid-19 grants for the workers.
GIB is the implementing agent for a R32-million project under Minister of Environment, Fisheries and Forestry Barbara Creecy. The contractors remove alien vegetation.
A letter dated 5 May and signed by GIB CEO Rienette Colesky, sent to the advisory committee and the contractors, states that GIB will pay all contractors and participants who have valid contracts with GIB a daily wage for the lockdown Level 5 period (the 22 work days between 27 March and 30 April). Any payments for the periods spent in lockdown during Level 4, which started on 1 May, will be communicated as soon as clarity is received from the Department.
According to Natasha Umtwa, a contractor who led the shutdown in March, a petition was handed to Creecy’s advisor Mphikeleli Ndlela and Mayor Samuel Vuso, asking for their intervention because of labour issues and numerous grievances against GIB. But “due to lockdown, the process has been delayed and therefore we as contractors and the advisory committee have decided that we will not let our people suffer during this Covid-19 pandemic and the office has been opened to generate payments.”
“In March some contractors were paid but some were not. But we hope that GIB will accommodate everyone during this time,” said Umtwa.
Mayor Vuso said, “We are happy that the office has been opened. But that does not mean the investigations on allegations made by the workers will stop.”
Ward 4 councillor Fezile Yake (ANC), who is advisory liaison committee member on The Working with Water Programme, said residents in Tsitsikamma, Langkloof, Loutewater, Misgund, Kareedouw and Joubertina depend on the 1,260 people employed by the project.
“Our area is very poor and people have no other sources of income. The GIB will pay the workers and contractors social relief grants for the lockdown period. This money will help many households who were battling to make ends meet,” said Yake.
One of the contractors from Kareedouw, Wiseman Noma, said, ”This is a great relief especially for the workers. I have 14 workers who were already crying of hunger and being unable to provide for their families. But this Covid-19 money has not been paid yet. It’s still unclear how it works because we have not signed any documents. We only received the letters stating that we will receive the 22 days wage for level 5 lockdown and for level 4 it will be later communicated.”