Pretoria - Scores of National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) members in Limpopo are expected to march to the Office of the Premier and the Health Department today for what they have dubbed the provincial “day of action”.
Chief among their demands is their call for health head of department, Dr Thokozani Mhlongo, and deputy director-general Matome Mawasha to be removed from their positions. They say the pair have failed to manage the administration.
In a statement, the union’s secretary Moses Maubane said members were marching to Premier Stan Mathabatha’s office and the department to deliver a memorandum of demands.
He said: “These demands are in relation to the crisis currently engulfing departments across the provincial government especially the Department of Health.”
Nehawu is also asking the provincial government to permanently absorb community health-care workers and all contract workers in the province, and for the reinstatement of the union’s shop stewards dismissed across the province.
Mhlongo was in the spotlight in March this year when she threatened that health workers who were joining a strike would not get the much sought-after vaccination at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic which infuriated the union.
Responding to Pretoria News yesterday, Matabatha’s spokesperson Ndavhe Ramakuela said: “We have received notification of a march tomorrow. We shall have people ready to receive the memorandum. Only after receiving the memorandum will we look into what issues are raised and respond accordingly.”
Nehawu’s deputy secretary Jacob Abrams said that there would be an estimated 1 500 shop stewards attending the march.
Pretoria News