Hire workers from the Durban South community, protesters urge Engen

Disgruntled Durban South communities have demanded transparency about Engen’s plan to include them in their corporate social investment (CSI) programme.

Communities aligned with labour organisation Changing Our Behaviour To Unite (COBTU) protested outside the company’s refinery in Wentworth on Monday.

They want the company and its subcontractors to hire workers from the surrounding communities — including Umlazi, Lamontville, Wentworth and Merebank — through COBTU as a “labour desk” instead of the existing joint committee appointed by Engen to liaise between them and the community.

“They [Engen] say they will communicate with the JC, which is supposed to represent the community, but from 2020 they’ve never come once to respond to us as the community. So who do they represent?” asked Reggie Smith, a COBTU-aligned community member.

“They must ensure the companies [subcontractors] adopt at least two community liaison officers from COBTU to liaise with for CVs when they need workers. That will help us see what is going on here because there is no transparency. It’s just words we’re told and there’s no action.”

Smith was delivering a memorandum of demands to Engen representatives as an interdict bars some COBTU leaders from participating in gatherings close to the company.

They also demanded employment of general workers and semi-skilled workers be done through them, while a 70-30% ratio should apply in other disciplines.

“We have all the skills you need within these groups of people, we have our offices here, yet they don’t want to communicate with us. There are the people of the community here ... we are not asking for handouts. We’re not asking you for a fish, we’re asking for a fishing rod,” he said.

This comes a month after the same communities demonstrated outside the refinery with similar grievances.

At the time, Engen’s national stakeholder engagement manager Ronald Chauke said the company would hold a meeting with representatives of the joint committee and communicate what was discussed and agreed to in a meeting set for the next day.

Smith blamed Engen’s failure to live up to their word after the last demonstration and subsequent meetings, including Chauke not not arriving for a meeting he had promised.

“We had meetings before this [the protest] with Engen and they gave us their word but we can’t take it because it means nothing. The only reason we’re here is because we had an agreement with them to reach an amicable solution and they went back on it.”

Smith said they didn’t understand Engen’s reluctance to work with them because it would ensure smooth relations between them and the community for their CSI projects.

“This is not our responsibility alone, it’s part of CSI too. We are asking to help you, as Engen, and us as the community, to build a better relationship. At no point or time have we disagreed to work with you,” said Smith.

James Nyawara, head of transformation and stakeholder engagement at Engen, accepted the memorandum and promised to respond to it after two weeks.

He told TimesLIVE: “We have a healthy relationship with the community but, like everywhere else in the country, people are frustrated because of the unemployment crisis. We normally have meetings with community leaders representing them when it comes to corporate [issues],” he said.

TimesLIVE

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