Employees at one of the financially struggling municipality in North West have been told not to come to work after they were intimidated by aggrieved members of the community.

Services at the Ditsobotla local municipality have, as a result, come to a standstill. Municipal spokesperson Pius Batsile said on Tuesday the municipality would organise for security measures to be beefed up before workers could be allowed back.

He said a group of angry residents stormed municipal offices and started verbally assaulting staff.

Batsile said the group wanted the municipality to hire them, noting this might have been influenced by a meeting the group held with the administrator two weeks ago.

Ditsobotla local municipality was one of the seven municipalities that the provincial government has placed under administration. In May last year, mayor Daniel Buthelezi was held hostage after some residents demanded that he address their grievances, including unemployment.

Batsile said the aggrieved residents were making things more difficult for the municipality which is still trying to recover from its financial woes, adding that service delivery has been affected. 

“We want to mitigate such actions; management is trying to organised a tight-access control for the safety of employees. Because of their [residents] actions, [some] people can’t pay their rates and services. The management of Ditsobotla local municipality apologises for any inconvenience caused by the disruption of services and is working tirelessly in ensuring such incident does not happen again,”

He assured the community that services would resume on Wednesday or Thursday.