The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union [NEHAWU] in Limpopo is taken aback by the outcomes of the Provincial Command Council in particular in reference to a conclusion that workers are not coming to work and hiding under a cloak of COVID-19 which has led to compromised service delivery.

This is a very dangerous statement by the command council to the public because it paints public servants as irresponsible and it has a potential to mobilize society against workers. Perhaps the command council is now starting to showing signs of buckling under pressure because of the growing number of infections as well as fatalities and is probably starting to look elsewhere to lay the blame for their own shortcomings.

This tendency is insensitive to the plight of workers who are working under very unsafe working conditions and in danger of getting infected with COVID-19 on a daily basis. Workers in Limpopo do not need such irresponsible statements from the command council especially during this time.

We don’t have any data that supports what the command council is claiming. The issue of a bloated public service has been defeated several times as non-factual because of the prevalent shortage of staff in the public service. The report of the fact-finding mission report by our National Office Bearers [NOBs] also point to this point and reveals that there is a big problem of understaffing across the country.

The Department of Public Service and Administration [DPSA] circular 18 of 2020 in response to the Alert level 3 of the lockdown outlined the conditions under which workers must returned to their respective workplaces by stating that at Alert level 3, there must be 50% of the total work force from 33% of Alert level 4. This was a guide for departments to return workers to workplaces in a staggered manner for the purpose of social distancing. In this regard, we call on the command council to read the regulations before they make reckless statements.

Issued by NEHAWU Secretariat Office For further information, please contact: Jacob Adams @ 082 558 5966 or email: khaya@nehawu.org.za