Telkom ‘sabotage’: Over 13 000 customers affected

Telkom has revealed more details on what it calls wide-scale sabotage of its network, saying that 13 200 customers were affected by the outages.

On Friday, Telkom announced a R500 000 reward for information related to “a series of acts of sabotage” across its network. At the time, it said that facilities in Midrand, Silverton, Pretoria West, Pinetown, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Makhado and Messina were all affected.

Related: Telkom offering R500k reward after countrywide ‘senseless sabotage’

The network has issued an update on the matter, revealing the scale of damage and repairs.

“A total of 85 street distribution cabinets (SDCs) have been damaged in the past five days. Many of these SDCs have either been fully repaired or are partially repaired. In areas where the work is still underway, the technicians are bringing streets back online as they complete the repairs. Our teams will continue to work around the clock until the service to all the affected customers is restored,” said Jacqui O’Sullivan, Telkom Managing Executive of Communication, in a statement.

85 Telkom street distribution cabinets have been damaged in the past five days

The Telkom representative put the blame squarely at the feet of striking workers.

“While less than 870 CWU members were on strike on Friday this thuggish behaviour has now had a significant impact on many residential and business customers.”

Telkom explained that it was implementing a “no work, no pay” rule as well.

“Those who have been striking consistently since 1 August have been informed they will not be paid on the 25^th of this month as a manual verification to check whether they actually worked any days in August is required. We will pay any days owing to them for August by 7 September 2016 in line with the requirements of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.”