For three years the cash-strapped Buffalo City Metro has been paying hundreds of thousands of rands to four VIP bodyguards to sit in a secluded office doing nothing.
Now the protection unit, who guarded former city manager Andile Fani until he left, say they are sick and tired of twiddling their thumbs.
They claim their pleas to be deployed somewhere more useful have fallen on deaf ears.
Magrike Maganyati, Mlungisi Tshona, Mzwamadoda Vanqa and Phakamisa Ntsila are among a group of 11 former uMkhonto weSizwe (MK) bodyguards employed by the metro.
They receive an annual salary as well as overtime pay, and are stationed in a small office located at a municipal bus depot in Arcadia. The men did not want to reveal specifics of their salaries but over the 36 months the combined amount has amounted to hundreds of thousands of rands.
A second grievance is that the municipality owes them a substantial amount in overtime pay earned between 2011 and 2016, which they claim city manager Andile Sihlahla refused to rubberstamp when he took office in June 2017.
Municipal bosses, including Sihlahla and deputy mayor Zoliswa Matana, and even the ANC, SACP and Samwu in the region, have been approached to intervene. The bodyguards say they feel sidelined for reasons unknown to them.
They believe that may be “caught in the crossfire” between their former boss (Fani) and municipal authorities – a stand-off that led to Fani’s sacking as city manager in 2016.
Despite still holding on to the municipal firearms allocated to them, they claim their vehicles have been taken away.
Their contracts with the city manager’s office, they say, were first terminated in 2016 after Fani’s departure, but that decision was later rescinded and their contracts extended numerous times, with no work being allocated to them during the subsequent period.
Maganyati said the bodyguards were now contemplating taking their fight for deployment to the ANC’s highest office.
“All we want is to be given something to do relating to the job description we were employed for,” he said.
“We are now even thinking about approaching the ANC president [Cyril Ramaphosa] for him to intervene.”
On Friday, Sihlahla said he was unaware of the matter and referred the Dispatch to BCM’s head of health, public safety and emergency services Vuyani Lwana. However, he could not be reached at the time of writing.
The ANC’s Dr WB Rubusana regional secretary, Antonio Carels, confirmed that the matter had been brought to the party’s attention.
“But we are yet to sit down with them and listen to their grievance,” said Carels.
SACP provincial spokesman Siyabonga Mdodi on Friday also confirmed that the party had been approached for intervention by the group.
“We have raised the matter with the ANC in the region and asked for a discussion on the matter as the alliance,” Mdodi said.
MK military veterans association BCM chair Xolani Tivi refused to comment on Friday...