Johannesburg - The City of Joburg's MMC for Environment and Infrastructure Services, Nico de Jager, on Monday condemned the disruption of service delivery allegedly caused by former Jozi@Work employees over the weekend, saying that anyone vandalising the city would face the full might of the law.
This comes after a large group of disgruntled former Jozi@Work employees on Friday began disrupting service delivery by damaging infrastructure and littering extensively.
On Sunday, the disgruntled former Jozi@Work employees allegedly emptied and smashed concrete and metal rubbish cans in the streets.
In a statement, De Jager said this "criminal behaviour" escalated on Saturday when the perpetrators started using trucks to further disrupt service delivery and attacked two contracted Pikitup staff members.
De Jager said Pikitup was in possession of the registration numbers of these trucks.
"The trucks used by Jozi@work members do not belong to Pikitup. The City is working with policing authorities to identify the owners of the vehicles in order to lay criminal charges against those responsible for disruptions to services and damage to property," de Jager said.
"We are also informed that the planned disruptions are set to continue today. As a precautionary measure, additional JMPD officers have been deployed."
De Jager said Pikitup staff tried to clean the mess left behind over the course of the past three days, but were prevented from doing so by those belonging to Jozi@Work.
As a result, Joubert Park and Rissik Street in Braamfontein are still badly affected and have been prioritised for cleaning.
De Jager said the reasons for the most recent disruptions had not been communicated to the City and that amounted to nothing but lawless action.
"I wish to reiterate that the City has been clear about the temporary and rotational nature of the contracts and have at no point stated or implied that anyone would be entitled to an extension, or that the three-month contracts would result in full-time employment," De Jager said.
"The Jozi@Work programme was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, benefitting only the middlemen who were awarded multimillion-rand contracts to run projects."
Joburg Mayor Herman Mashaba announced in February that he would cancel the City's R1 billion co-production programme Jozi@Work, which was spearheaded by the previous administration, saying that it was littered with patronage.
In May this year, the three-month Pikitup contracts signed by former Jozi@Work beneficiaries through the City’s Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP), expired.
Jozi@Work, a programme designed to allow communities to partner with the city in the delivery of municipal services in their neighbourhoods, was launched in September 2014.