​The KwaZulu-Natal Executive Council Members have today convened an emergency meeting with the Ugu District Municipality. This comes in the wake of unrest that has broken out across the district following an illegal protest by municipal workers based at uGu District Municipality over labour relations matters.Unfortunately, the workers’ protest has been characterised by disruptions on the delivery of basic services, emergency services and unexplainable municipal infrastructure vandalism.A joint meeting of the MECs of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs and Community Safety and Transport, together with local mayors, met with technical teams from the municipality, the SAPS and local municipalities in an attempt to restore order and service delivery, but also to try and address the workers’ concerns.The meeting has established a Joint Operations Centre that will operate around the clock, to monitor the situation, restore basic service delivery and prevent any further threats.The Operations Centre has undertaken to address the situation around three main issues, namely:•To restore law and order;•To restore water service delivery where it has been disrupted;•To engage the concerned employees on the areas of grievances;Based on the assessment of the situation on the ground, the meeting agreed that the situation warranted a declaration of disaster for the district of Ugu. This declaration will effectively enable an urgent activation of all state resources to ensure that stability is restored in the area.Of critical concern, said Cogta MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube, was the disruption of water supply to the district, most critically the medical service facilities such as the Port Shepstone Provincial Hospital, among others.Senior police leadership present have undertaken to step and security majors, including following intelligence information that will lead to the arrest of perpetrators of violence and damage to infrastructure.Closed-Circuit Television cameras are being installed in the vicinity of all critical service infrastructure as a means to monitor and quell property damage.Mayors and councillors have been urged to organise community meetings across all the municipal wards in the district, as part of the public participation strategy of government.“We are taking the situation very seriously as it presents a life threat with the disruption to basic services such as water. We cannot tolerate lawlessness,” warned MEC Dube-Ncube.She added that she had deployed a high-level team of senior technical officials from Cogta-KZN, who will meet with employee representatives to ensure that while order was being restored, at the same time, the issues that had given rise to the breakdown of relations between employer and employee were addressed as a matter of urgency.BACKGROUND IN BRIEF:During March 2018, some staff at Ugu District embarked on an illegal work stoppage, in the form of a strike that was not protected.The Municipality had informed the striking employees through their union that as a result the “no work no pay principle” would apply, and salary deduction would be effected in May 2018.Further to that, some 11 shop stewards invaded a municipal Growth and Development Strategy Planning Meeting, after which they were given a chance to make written submissions as to why they would not be suspended and charged for gross misconduct and insubordination as a result of their actions.The Municipality has also been forced to reduce overtime due to the escalation of costs which the municipality could not afford, since there were Treasury restrictions of spending due to budget constraints across the board in the province.Consequently, the aggrieved staff members have responded by taking advantage of them being mainly technical staff, and have disrupted service delivery to the public.ENDSJOINT MEDIA STATEMENT BY THE MEC FOR COOPERATIVE GOVERNANCE AND TRADITIONAL AFFAIRS IN KWAZULU-NATAL AND THE UGU DISTRICT MUNICIPALITY​