The vandalism of at least six Telkom exchange boxes has left East London businesses reeling, including the South African National Blood Services (SANBS) which suffered a heavy blow to its blood donations.
The incident was seen as a deliberate act by striking Telkom employees as the national strike by the Communication Workers Union entered its fifth week.
The affected exchange boxes are in NU3 Mdantsane, Berea, Vincent, West Bank, and Fort Jackson.
The SANBS is now 300 blood units behind target for August.
In order to get more blood donors, the SANBS has to phone potential donors daily, in East London and other areas. Two SANBS recruiters have to contact 150 donors each.
“This means we are 300 calls down and we also have someone on the side who calls 75 people per day so we can’t get hold of nearly 400 people from areas in Mthatha, Queenstown and East London area,” said SANBS spokeswoman Renee Vice.
Vice said because they could not make calls, it meant many donors would not know when they were due to donate blood.
Telkom has since publicly accused the striking workers of sabotaging its network facilities.
Telkom spokeswoman Jaqui O’Sullivan earlier said on the Telkom website, “this thuggish behaviour has now had a significant impact on many residential and business customers”.
Businesses also have been struggling to meet their targets while spending more money looking for other solutions.
Rob Pollock of Rob Pollock’s Photography said: “My business has been affected quite badly because we now have to try to have other ways to make the internet work; people can’t access our website so they try to call but can’t get through either, because our phones are down.”
Linda Maneli of a local chartered accountancy firm said: “We are unable to get hold of our clients; we can’t receive e-mails either because the network is down and we can’t even use a scanner.
“We’ve been buying airtime since Monday for the cellphones, which is costing us.”
Berea Pharmacy could not process any medical aid prescriptions at the beginning of the week. Manager Brian Anderson said: “When we do prescriptions to medical schemes we are reliant on the internet.”
Anderson said the business had to buy a dongle with a special router, data bundles and cellphones. They had reported the matter to Telkom and were informed that the matter would be fixed soon but to no avail.
Some of the measures taken by businesses include setting up alternative internet servers, buying special routers and cellphones and prepaid airtime.
The businesses have been spending more money trying to solve the problem while losing revenue.
The Dispatch has learnt that it will take six weeks before Telkom can fix the problem as the company is running out of technicians.
Meanwhile, yesterday Telkom welcomed a labour court judgment against CWU which turned down an urgent application brought by the CWU to interdict Telkom from completing a Section 189 (retrenchment) phase of the company’s restructuring of its corporate office. — malibongwed@dispatch.co.za
EL’s Telkom vandals hit blood stock
The incident was seen as a deliberate act by striking Telkom employees as the national strike by the Communication Workers Union entered its fifth week.
The affected exchange boxes are in NU3 Mdantsane, Berea, Vincent, West Bank, and Fort Jackson.
The SANBS is now 300 blood units behind target for August.
In order to get more blood donors, the SANBS has to phone potential donors daily, in East London and other areas. Two SANBS recruiters have to contact 150 donors each.
“This means we are 300 calls down and we also have someone on the side who calls 75 people per day so we can’t get hold of nearly 400 people from areas in Mthatha, Queenstown and East London area,” said SANBS spokeswoman Renee Vice.
Vice said because they could not make calls, it meant many donors would not know when they were due to donate blood.
Telkom has since publicly accused the striking workers of sabotaging its network facilities.
Telkom spokeswoman Jaqui O’Sullivan earlier said on the Telkom website, “this thuggish behaviour has now had a significant impact on many residential and business customers”.
Businesses also have been struggling to meet their targets while spending more money looking for other solutions.
Rob Pollock of Rob Pollock’s Photography said: “My business has been affected quite badly because we now have to try to have other ways to make the internet work; people can’t access our website so they try to call but can’t get through either, because our phones are down.”
Linda Maneli of a local chartered accountancy firm said: “We are unable to get hold of our clients; we can’t receive e-mails either because the network is down and we can’t even use a scanner.
“We’ve been buying airtime since Monday for the cellphones, which is costing us.”
Berea Pharmacy could not process any medical aid prescriptions at the beginning of the week. Manager Brian Anderson said: “When we do prescriptions to medical schemes we are reliant on the internet.”
Anderson said the business had to buy a dongle with a special router, data bundles and cellphones. They had reported the matter to Telkom and were informed that the matter would be fixed soon but to no avail.
Some of the measures taken by businesses include setting up alternative internet servers, buying special routers and cellphones and prepaid airtime.
The businesses have been spending more money trying to solve the problem while losing revenue.
The Dispatch has learnt that it will take six weeks before Telkom can fix the problem as the company is running out of technicians.
Meanwhile, yesterday Telkom welcomed a labour court judgment against CWU which turned down an urgent application brought by the CWU to interdict Telkom from completing a Section 189 (retrenchment) phase of the company’s restructuring of its corporate office. — malibongwed@dispatch.co.za
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