The Kimberley Action Group believes that senior administrators at Sol Plaatje Municipality are ’a law unto themselves’ and are continuing to victimise women who report incidents of sexual harassment involving their superiors.
THE KIMBERLEY Action Group believes that senior administrators at Sol Plaatje Municipality are “a law unto themselves” and are continuing to victimise women who report incidents of sexual harassment involving their superiors.
Boyce Makodi from the Kimberley Action Group stated that despite being called to a meeting at the municipality this week, after the deadline for a response to the community group’s demands had expired, there was still no feedback from the local authority.
“It’s evident that the municipality is mandated to protect perpetrators,” said Makodi.
He stated that one of the victims “had her private parts touched” without her consent, while she also received lewd and sexually suggestive WhatsApp messages.
“The municipality saw fit to accept a sanction of a 10-day salary cut that was deducted over three months.”
Makodi added that officials were delegated from human resources and a gender officer met with them on Wednesday, March 2.
“We were informed that the executive mayor was not aware of the contents of the memorandum and that there were no official responses to our grievances. The mayor, municipal manager, director of corporate services and members of the mayoral committee were not available as they were attending a council meeting that was scheduled to take place an hour late. They are playing cat and mouse. We urge the municipality and its officials to refrain from these unprofessional time-wasting tactics.”
No response was received from the municipality by the time of publication.
