File Picture: Boxer Ngwenya
Bus Company, Putco, has denied claims by National Union of Mineworkers of South Africa's (Numsa) that it dumped faeces at depot near a residential area in Soweto.
This comes after a suspended employee recorded a video of a van carrying a mobile toilet, dumping alleged faeces in a bushy area, within the Putco premises.
The man is heard saying in isiZulu: “There they are (Putco), they are dumping our s&*t right where we are forced to sit. I want you all of you to see them. Why don’t they dump it outside...We must sit in the smell, it means we are not important.’’
According to Numsa, suspended employees have been forced to come to work and sit at the Nancefield depot in Soweto and are not allowed to use toilets in the building.
“Putco is treating workers like animals because it does not allow them to use decent toilets, they are forced to use portable toilets. Previously, they made them use bucket toilets and then later changed them because NUMSA complained,” said Numsa spokesperson, Phakamile Hlubi-Majola.
The workers were suspended after engaging in an unprotected strike in September 2022. As a result, they are facing a Section 188A CCMA arbitration process.
Hlubi-Majola said Putco was deliberately frustrating workers by refusing them decent toilets in the building.
“If this allegation is true, then this is a gross violation of dignity and it shows the level of disdain that Putco has for African workers, and the community of Soweto at large, because it allegedly dumping faeces very close to where they live,” she said.
Meanwhile, Putco's spokesperson, Lindokuhle Xulu, said the suspended workers and the union were on a continuous and desperate campaign to tarnish the image of the company.
Xulu disputed Numsa’s statement saying it was a blatant lie because the company’s investigation revealed that the mobile toilet was reported to be faulty with a water leak and did not contain any human waste.
“At the time the video was taken on February 18, 2024, the service provider had just delivered a new unit and was transporting the leaking one out of the depot.
“A formal report by the external service provider explains that the driver was draining the remaining water from the faulty unit to make it safe while driving before removing it from our premises,” he said.
Xulu sent IOL a video where the driver showed where he allegedly dumped the remains which were in the mobile toilet, no human waste could be seen on the video.
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