The municipality that serves the area comprising Swartruggens, Derby and Koster, south-east of Sun City, in the North-West province has totally stopped functioning and that includes each and every service, even basics like the provision of water. Local residents led by the Rate Payers Association have declared an emergency and have started to provide the services themselves!
The reason that the municipality can’t provide any services is because all municipal workers are on strike, because the municipality has taken the pension contributions of the workers to pay for other “expenses”. The local residents are already working shifts to run the water treatment plant according to Mr Carel van Heerden of the local ratepayers association who was interviewed by Netwerk24.
The association had to obtain a court order last week to prohibit striking workers from intimidating community volunteers who now operate the water treatment plant . The intervention by the ratepayers
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