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Cape Town - After 23 years, the Midrand municipal workers who were sacked after going on strike in 1994 against claimed corruption, and several of whom who may have been cheated out of their pension monies, have finally won two victories.
The Johannesburg City Council has agreed to grant priority for jobs to the workers and the Financial Services Board has instituted an inquiry into the former Transvaal Municipal Retirement Fund and Joint Municipal Fund.
After being largely ignored over the years by the media, the convenor of the remaining 280 workers of the 500 who downed tools in 1994 has also been invited to speak on national radio on Wednesday.
Stena Molepo, who provided evidence that he had paid R300 to obtain a Midrand municipal job, has been asked by the weekly Workers on Wednesday programme to give a background to the strike, the problems faced then by whistleblowers and how he sees the matter finally unfolding.
“It’s been a long time, but it looks like we are finally getting there,” he said on Tuesday.
One of the recommendations in a memorandum delivered to Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba last month was that it was essential that an investigation be launched into “the probable misappropriation” of pension fund money owing to the 280 Midrand municipality workers who were sacked in controversial circumstances 23 years ago.
The memorandum, drafted by Christo Marais, acting group executive director of the council’s corporate and shared services division, was diplomatically phrased, but still scathing about the conduct of the former Midrand council.
He noted that the “bona fide conduct” of several officials “as well as senior officials and politicians at that time is questionable and a high likelihood of severe corruption cannot be excluded”.
However, it was not within the brief of Marais to make any findings on the rights or wrongs of the dismissals or corruption allegations. The inquiry by his department could only “at best” verify the facts leading to the sacking of the workers.
The workers have maintained throughout that the prime reason for their dismissal was that they demanded action against corrupt practices within the council at the time.
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