With reference to the post highlighted below in which Retief Odendaal asks a number of public questions of Barry Martin, the Water and Sanitation Services Director in Nelson Mandela Bay.
I first read this post with a feeling of disquiet, wanted to comment and then decided against doing so. I know Retief fairly well and he is a highly intelligent caring man who thinks before doing. Of course the damn post popped up in my timeline again and I couldn’t resist commenting in the hope that Retief will at least read how his concerns look to an ordinary member of the public who has had his fair share of employee woes and learned a lot from those experiences.
This time I think that he has put his foot in his mouth and needs to recover.
To publicly call out an employee (whether it is in public service or private business) is just not on for two main reasons:
- It exposes the employer to censure from the CCMA for constructive dismissal
- It exposes the employer to further legal action for defamation
Compounding the conundrum is the fact that sniping on a public forum by saying “Surely this in itself constitutes a gross dereliction of duty and almost borderlines willful sabotage?” places the employer in an unenviable and WEAK position should any disciplinary action be brought against Mr Martin.
Of course there could be more to the story but we will now never know. Some great writer once said; “Never declare a war unless you are convinced that you will win.” In this case the Municipality will win* and the losers will be:
- Everyone’s Dignity
- Retief’s Party
- The ratepayers and
- Mr Martin
When officials and employees fight in the open then we need to be concerned.
* A wise lawyer by the name of Gerald Friedman said to me a few years ago when the Algoa Bay Yacht Club was facing down the mighty Transnet; “Alan, it doesn’t matter if you are right – if Transnet have decided to get rid of the ABYC then they will. They own the land you built the Yacht Club on, they are bigger than you and they have more money than you. What I can do is stall them whilst you look for another way to solve this impasse.” Gerald did buy us some valuable time and put up a valiant fight against the Goliath – I will always remember his wise words.
The entire Facebook post from Retief is below:
A key figure in the biweekly large scale water outages that NMB has experienced over the last couple of months is Mr Barry Martin, the Water and Sanitation Services Director in Nelson Mandela Bay. Now that the Democratic Alliance has confirmed reports from inside the water services department that bulk water supply is being sabatoged, we will ensure that the following questions are posed to him:
1) Was he aware of these acts of sabotage?
2) If he was aware of these acts of sabotage, why has he not taken action to prevent same?
3) Why have NMB communities been experiencing frequent 3/4/5 day water outages when this has NEVER happened in the past twenty years (even when the main supply pipe from Churchill had to be fixed)?
4) We understand that the Chelsea Reservoir, which is ordinarily fed by the Western Supply System (storage dams), has been taken off this system and put onto the Nooitgedacht-system so as to relieve some pressure of our dwindling dams. If this is the case, why has the department WILLFULLY decided to let a third of the Metro run dry when supply could have been switched back to the Western Supply System? Surely this in itself constitutes a gross dereliction of duty and almost borderlines willful sabotage?
5) Why is the latest municipal update stating that lower-lying areas are utilizing all the water from the Chelsea Reservoir when no water has been flowing into the this reservoir until late this morning?
6) Which lower-lying areas are utilizing this water and how can they utilize same if the reservoir is empty?
7) What has happened to the 60 ML (Sixty MILLION Litres) of water that was due to reach the Chelsea Reservoir since yesterday? Since when does the “lower-lying areas” surrounding the Chelsea Reservoir consume a quarter of all water in NMB?NmbWatergate-Answers must be given, heads must roll.
Alan Straton
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