Guest contributors
Good day
Our community (the street where we live) obeys the law and just here and there maybe two or three vehicles that go past our home per day. People from other areas walk on our street, I suppose on their way to a Pick and Pay that is about a kilometre and a half from us. I have not seen an Saps vehicle since the lockdown started.
These are some of the experiences shared with us:
| Kappie Kapp I am a 70-year-old pensioner. I had my eyes tested on the Wednesday before the lockdown. I desperately need the new glasses as my vision is blurry. I cannot understand why optometrists are also closed. |
| Elissa Rossouw My lockdown experience is very stressful, as my hubby and myself have a son. We have to make sure that we have money to buy food, etc. His employer isn’t paying him a full salary. Prices of food have sky rocketed. Basically, everything has. |
| Anthea I’m a community helper from Welbedatch East. I’m trying to get help for my community in an informal settlement. People are starving. |
| Shaida Hi there I’m one of several security officers who have been working since the beginning of lockdown as essential service workers. To be fair for me and my company, I need to report that our company is not complying with Covid-19 rules: no social distancing, we are overloaded at the back of a bakkie on a daily basis, we never received any high-risk allowance. We don’t understand maybe we do not qualify for it. They even failed to give us our annual increase as security officers that was negotiated since last year. According to the information from unions, from March we were supposed to be rated under new rates, but unfortunately the company paid us the old rates on 15 April, from 2018. Nothing has changed. It’s very difficult to be security officers on this country. |
• Below is the Satellite photo of Chatsworth, in Durban, where a company is accused of not adhering to the lockdown regulations. It s alleged, by the contributor, that some people are quashed in a bakkie when being transported to work.
