When he started picking up litter, Themba* never thought he would be forced to swap his overalls for an ANC t-shirt and play a part in the ''ruling party's electioneering tools''.
He was employed as part of government's Extended Public Works Programme last year to work in Atteridgeville, west of Pretoria. But on Friday Themba says he and his colleagues gathered at the local ANC Parliamentary Constituency office from where they were taken, in two buses, to Garankuwa where President Jacob Zuma addressed an election rally.
Themba is among 3000 people employed under the auspices of the Tshwane municipality's operation "Vat Alles" and earns R2120 a month.
He said workers were told on Thursday that they would attend Zuma's rally and were threatened with losing their jobs if they did not attend.
He says he was also forced to do door-to-door campaigning for the ANC in September last year. "When I was employed, we were assured that this had nothing to do with politics but now we are being used for campaigning and to attend rallies."
The Times spoke to Atteridgeville residents who said it was common knowledge that the public works campaign workers were being used by the ANC for campaigning.
ANC spokesman Jackson Mthembu said: "It is unbelievable - we do not use workers of government to campaign for the ANC. We have never done so."
*Not his real name
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