Capricorn FM reports that hundreds of EPWP workers under the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment marched to the Office of the Limpopo Premier and Polokwane municipality offices today, to hand over a memorandum of grievances over wages and extension of contracts. The workers are seeking intervention from those government structures in raising their concerns to the Presidency and the forestry department because they cannot get to Pretoria.

The workers’ leader Matome Modiba says they are asking for an extension of the contracts for the next two years, and a minimum wage increase so that workers can continue to support their families. He says the contract started in December last year and is expected to end in November this year, but they are asking that it be extended to November 2026.

Modiba says workers comprise of young people, most of whom should be at school and elderly people who should not even be working under such harsh conditions of cleaning dumping sites. He says it is unfair that workers earn less than R2500 a month, while the cost of living is high. Modiba says they are also asking for training, because it is unfair to keep someone on a contract for a year and when it ends, they become unemployed.

by Meta Mphahlele