Ekurhuleni metro police officers defied the law, using taxpayer-funded vehicles to blockade highways in a controversial wage protest.
Most of the City of Ekurhuleni was paralysed yesterday when disgruntled metro police officers blockaded highways and major arterials in illegal strike action.
Thousands of motorists were left stuck in gridlock for up to four hours as almost all economic activity ground to a halt between 7am and 11am.
Members of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department (EMPD) were dejected because, according to MMC for finance Jongizizwe Dlabathi, the department did not meet their expectations for wage and working condition demands.
Ekurhuleni metro police dejected
“It was a departmental matter that has now escalated to the city’s executive after yesterday’s illegal strike,” he said.
Spokesperson for the city Zweli Dlamini said that EMPD’s actions cannot be condemned strongly enough.
“A labour forum was scheduled for 2 April, where the EMPD officer’s grievances would have been tabled anyway,” Dlamini said. “The blockade was premature and unnecessary.”
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Local ward councillor Simon Lapping of the DA called the EMPD’s actions “scare tactics” akin to economic extortion.
Disregard for the law extended to the striking metro police using taxpayer assets, vehicles and fuel, to abet their action, he said. “Residents were, in effect, paying for the mess.”
Along with frustrated commuters and companies, Lapping was furious.
Furious residents
“Ekurhuleni is home to the majority of heavy industry in the Gauteng metro areas and a slight kink in the value chain, even just for a few hours, can cost the economy millions,” he said. “Notwithstanding the inconvenience and the fact that the very people paid to enforce the law could so easily break it.”
An irate X user posted: “I love watching my taxes being spent paying government salaries and vehicles that are being used to obstruct my countrymen from getting to work. From this, one can logically conclude that paying taxes makes one criminally complicit in these events.”
Another commented that “only in South Africa will those responsible for enforcing the law break the very same law by blocking free movement of people. Those officers need to be arrested and fired”.
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Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis weighed in on X: “In Cape Town every one of these officers would be fired and the unions would attack us for doing so.”
Dhlabathi said due process will take place.
“That will be the correct course of action,” he said, adding “we will be guided by the outcome thereof in terms of consequence management.”
Saps criticised for not taking control of illegal strike
Another comment on X suggested that “water cannons and rubber bullets will sort this out. These people are trying everything to bring SA to her knees.”
Dlabathi criticised the SA Police Service for not taking control of the situation. “The police could have done better in terms of curtailing this kind of lawlessness on our highways,” he said.
Representatives of EMPD staffers and city executives are meeting today to discuss the cops’ grievances.
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