Sabotage blamed for communications disruptions
CWU workers went on strike on 11 August as wage talks with the telecoms giant collapsed
AN Empangeni businessman says his enterprise is suffering as he has had no telephone or internet connection for almost four weeks.
‘On the evening of 10 August, my telephone lines went off for the first time,’ says Rod Gradwell, owner of Zulfire.
‘I called Telkom the next morning and again on 15 August after my fax line also went offline.
‘For the past week, I have called virtually every day and I am promised that a technician will come and attend to the problem.
Brett Poupard of Neotek Empangeni says his ADSL clients in Empangeni had outages almost every day for a
week during the initial stage of the strike.
‘Fifty percent of my ADSL client base was down, Empangeni for four days and Richards Bay two days here and there,’ he said.
Clients with mobile and fibre optic connections meanwhile did not suffer outages.
Photo – Wellington Makwakwa
Gradwell says he ran into a Telkom employee last week, who told him they were having endless problems with sabotage, individuals unknown breaking boxes and burning cables.
Sabotage
Telkom has issued several statements in which they assert that the ongoing strike by the Communication Workers Union (CWU) has led to a spike in sabotage on their infrastructure, a claim which CWU denies.
Telkom is now offering a R1-million reward for information leading to the arrest of any persons responsible for the sabotage.
CWU workers went on strike on 11 August as wage talks with the telecoms giant collapsed.
Telkom spokesperson Pynee Chetty on Wednesday referred questions from the Zululand Observer to statements published on Telkom’s website.
‘Since the commencement of the strike by members of the Communication Workers Union almost five weeks ago, Telkom has experienced an increase in acts of sabotage on its network, especially in Gauteng, Limpopo and the KZN province,’ read a statement on the website.
‘Over 60 of our Street Distribution Cabinets (SDCs) have been damaged in the past few weeks and fibre and copper cables cut. While most of our infrastructure has now been fixed, our technicians are working around the clock to ensure that those that remain not fixed are brought back on stream.’
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