SA Municipal Workers’ Union members and the ANC youth league in KSD joined forces on Sunday to restore the Mthatha CBD by cleaning up the filthy streets.
The clean-up follows almost two weeks of protest by Samwu during which rubbish was dumped in Sprigg, Madeira, York and Owen Streets, as well as other smaller streets in the town.
Samwu regional leader Lwazi Madyibi said accusations that it was Samwu protesters who trashed the streets were untrue, but as a union they wanted to show strong leadership and responsibility by cleaning up.
“We downed tools and took to the streets because we have many grievances with KSD municipality.
“However, we did not like seeing our town in such a mess.
“We do not know who did this because Samwu had nothing to do with throwing trash and defacing the town,” Madyibi said.
About 200 members had taken time “to serve the people of Mthatha by cleaning this filth”, he said.
They have suspended their protest although their demands have not been met.
ANCYL regional secretary Bongani Mlanjeni said they joined the clean-up to show that Mthatha was not in a state of anarchy. “The protest was necessary, but we also understand that the economy thrives on investors and if our town and streets are not clean, investors will not even give us a second look.
“We are showing the leaders of the municipality and the ruling party that we can work together and achieve great things.
“We also want to gain the trust of the public back by showing that we are not hooligans and that we do care about the state of our town,” Mlanjeni said.
But he said the mess should be a lesson to the ANC to intervene before their workers were so frustrated that they took to the streets...