Water used as weapon against workers

Onalenna Kelebeile | Thursday September 25, 2014 17:32

He was responding to allegations that Selebi-Phikwe Town Council ordered Water Utilities Corporation to disconnect water from council houses last Friday in a bid to forcibly remove health workers residing there. The health workers are scheduled to move to Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) houses, which council has offloaded to the Ministry of Health. The disconnection forced some health workers to be late for work this week.

The affected workers spent all of Monday between the District office and council offices in search of a the solution.

BLAHWU Secretary General Ketlhalefile Motshegwa said they have written letters to Department of Public Service Management (DPSM) and Permanent Secretaries in the Ministries of Health and Local Government.

He explained that when the said health workers were transferred to central government in 2010 it was a transitional process that involved proper consultation between the two ministries.

“Unfortunately now, the council did not revert to that process when they wanted to remove health workers from its houses. There is currently one employer being government, so there is nothing like the houses are for council not government,” he said. Motshegwa added that union is expecting feedback today failure of which they will institute an interdiction.

“Disconnecting water supply to health workers by council is just barbaric,” he fumed. Health workers who preferred anonymity for fear of victimisation said yesterday that they have been rendered virtually homeless.

They spent the whole of Monday at the District Office and later moved to council offices.  “We are government employees and council houses are government property and we do not want to be treated like this,” they said. They added that they started receiving letters from council in May this year instructing them to have relocated from the houses by June 3.

They responded by referring council to the Ministry of Health. They said they received other letters in July followed by other individual letters this month informing them that they will be relocated to houses council pooled from BHC.

 “We later learnt that the houses have already been sold since the contract between council and BHC expires at the end of this month, and MoH has no contract with BHC,” they said.

The health workers explained that when they were moved from council to central government, they were assured that there had been proper consultation between the two ministries and everything would remain as it is.

For his part Town Clerk Poloko Mojalemotho explained that moving officers from one house to the other is a normal exercise that always takes place and said due to budgetary constraints, the council decided to offload some of its BHC houses to the MoH instead of handing them back to the corporation.

“As a result health officers were asked to move into those houses. They have been allocated those houses and they have letters in their possession. Some of them have already relocated to those houses,” said Mojalemotho.

He said council has done everything possible including availing a vehicle to relocate them but the said officers are not maximally doing their part.

He confirmed that water was disconnected last Friday as one of the alternatives to make the officers move.

“We are going ahead to move them to their new houses unless there is a special case that we have to consider. We have done everything possible to facilitate their relocation,” he said.

Mojalemotho explained that they are simply relocating 17 health workers to the houses they offloaded from the MoH and that offloading houses was necessary to reduce its rental costs.

He indicated that health officials owed council over P600,000 in rental arrears when they were transferred to the Ministry of Health.

He said others have since been transferred out of town and some were foreigners who have returned back to their countries of origin.  “Some however had been cooperative hence P399,000 of arrears were paid as at June this year. The remaining balance is P237,000. 

“This, however is a different matter and it would be unfair if this could be blamed on the health workers in question,” he said, adding that contrary to reports that 40 health workers were without water, he was aware of only five.