Protest over 'DG's R500 000 furniture'

This week, employees in the office of Premier Cassel Mathale affiliated to the National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union expressed their opposition to the purchase by picketing outside the offices at lunch time.

The workers want the director-general (D-G), Rachel Molepo-Modipa, to resign.

"We are very serious about our call for Molepo-Modipa to resign," Nehawu branch secretary Norman Mavhunga said.

Mavhunga said they were also protesting against intimidation, victimisation and the escalating corruption in Mathale's office without any action being taken.

The union's provincial chairman, Mike Shingange, said they would be left with no option but to call for other branches to embark on a fully fledged strike should their demands not be met within a week.

Cosatu provincial secretary Dan Sebabi said: "Mathale's administration must collapse now because we know that he and his friends are deliberately failing the ANC because they are interested in tenders."

Limpopo government spokesman Tebatso Mabitsela said the new furniture was not bought for Molepo-Modipa but to convert an office in the premier's office into a boardroom.

"The D-G is still using the office fitted with furniture which was bought in 2003," he said.

Source: Sowetan via i-Net Bridge