Pretoria – Workers from the Department of Water and Sanitation's Hartbeespoort offices have been living with a filthy and an unkempt environment for a year.
The office premises were isolated from neighbouring establishments, and the workers have been housed in temporary containers, surrounded by long grass.
When the Pretoria News visited the office premises on Tuesday, the grass was long and thick and bins were overflowing with waste.
But these were just a few of the employees' complaints.
Staff at Kurperoord Cosmos Water Quality offices also spoke of walking through bushy grounds to get to the doors of their offices and said they walked in fear of snakes and other small animals that could hide in the grass.
Asking not to be named for fear of retribution, one employee said: “The people who were maintaining our premises – the cleaning and gardening services – left when a project we worked on ended last year.”
He said since the Metsi a me project ended, there had been no environmental maintenance at their workplace. “It’s been over a year now since the conditions have been like this. One would not even notice it’s a workplace as it looks abandoned.”
The workers of the Water Quality and Finance and Supply Chain said they had even stopped complaining.
“We are now tired because nothing is changing,” another worker said.
The Department of Water and Sanitation was contacted, but hadn't commented by the time of going to press.