City of Johannesburg group finance employees were evicted from their offices on Wednesday afternoon due to the city's alleged failure to pay rent.
The employees, occupying at least four floors in the building situated at 75 Helen Joseph Street in the city centre, were ordered to leave their offices during working hours.
This comes amid the financial crisis that has plagued the DA-led multiparty government, with multiple attempts at getting council to approve a R2bn loan to “fix the cashflow mismatches” proving unsuccessful.
An employee at the revenue services department told TimesLIVE the eviction was “abruptly” communicated by their operational managers.
“We were not given even an hour to evacuate the building. We did not even have time to source transportation to take our office belongings,” the employee said.
“They told us the city has not been paying rent for eight months or so, and the landlord started switching off electricity supply on Tuesday.
“The city is not providing data for employees and is expecting us to take desktop machines to our residential areas. They are not considering the security threat in council property being removed from official premises to our private properties where security is not as tight” he added.
“We find it very discomforting to operate in this way.”
Staff representative Karabo Ramahuma said the eviction was likely to have an adverse effect on service delivery.
“Those employees are a key component of service delivery because they deal with revenue collection, customer query resolution. This means that the city's ability to collect rates and taxes will be hampered.
“The city has made a commitment to increase its revenue collection ability ... and today a department that has the function to do that has been evicted from work,” said Ramahuma.
It is alleged that employees with Wi-Fi connections in their houses have been told to work from home, while those without will be made to “squat” in alternative buildings rented by the city.
This is not the first time the City of Johannesburg has lost access to property and rented work facilities due to nonpayment. A fleet belonging to Avis was withdrawn recently due to contract and payment management issues, while Afrirent pulled its vehicles two weeks ago due to non-payment.
Mabine Seabe, the director of mayoral communications, has declined to comment, arguing that the matter was administrative but not a political one, suggesting that Mayor Mpho Phalatse had nothing to say on the matter.
The office of the city manager did not respond to queries at the time of publication.
TimesLIVE
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