The South African Transport and Allied Union (Satawu) has condemned attacks and vandalism of infrastructure at Transnet, stating it was losing millions of rands due to theft.
According to the union, every two weeks, there was a case of infrastructure vandalism at the entity.
Satawu general secretary Jack Mazibuko said it was not only costing Transnet, but it also placed the lives of people in danger as fuel can be very dangerous.
Earlier this month, Transnet issued a statement about operations on the freight rail Iron corridor being severely disrupted due to a derailment and a separate incident of cable theft.
There had also been reports of oil being stolen.
“It is very disturbing and very sad, at the same time, that the entity spent close to a million over the past few days to fix an underground pipeline that was damaged by criminals in Mpumalanga. It is not a secret that the entity has lost billions of rands due to cable theft and vandalism over the past few years.
“The union strongly believes that those billions should and must be used towards saving jobs at Transnet and improving the lives of the poor and the working class. South Africa is still a developing country. It is, therefore, very disturbing to see what we have left with being destroyed like this every day,” said Mazibuko.
Satawu welcomed recent arrests but said more still needs to be done.
Cape Times