The City of Johannesburg’s call centre was down on Thursday with municipal employees asked earlier this week to use their personal phones.

Johannesburg municipal employees are experiencing intermittent service interruptions on their state-issued mobile phones.

Tip-offs from inside the municipality claim service disruptions were confirmed earlier this week, although city management had not stated the reason for the outages.

An internal message sent to city employees and shared with The Citizen shows the city is experiencing issues with its communication devices.

“Kindly note all state phones are currently offline. Group Corporate and Shared Services (GCSS) is currently working to resolve the matter.

“If and when it is resolved, [name withheld] will advise accordingly. Can we, in the interim, be patient and make use of our personal phones, so we have no loss of important information?” this week’s message read.

Telkom ‘engaging constructively’

Telkom is one of the service providers believed to have suspended the municipality’s communications; however, the entity did not confirm or deny that the service disruptions were caused by a lack of payment.

“As a matter of principle, Telkom does not comment publicly on its contractual, commercial, or operational dealings with individual customers.

“All customer-related matters are managed directly between Telkom and the relevant customer through the appropriate governance and contractual channels.

“Telkom remains committed to engaging constructively with all its customers and stakeholders to address any matters that may arise and to ensure the continued provision of services to all customers in accordance with applicable agreements and legal obligations,” Telkom’s media team told The Citizen.

Repeated messages to the city’s communications team since Wednesday afternoon were not responded to; however, a senior manager within the group finance department did reply.

In redirecting questions to GCSS, he did state he was “currently responding with my state-owned cellphone, just as a side note”.

The interruptions may also extend to the call centre, as multiple calls to the municipality’s call centre on Thursday failed to reach an operator following inputs made to the automated switchboard prompt.

Samwu go-slow

DA Johannesburg caucus leader Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku blamed the disruptions on a failure to pay service providers and said the party would approach city management for clarity on contingency plans.

“This is an absolute disgrace and yet another indication of the City’s deepening financial crisis.

“The fact that state-issued phones are offline because the city cannot pay its service providers is unacceptable. Residents expect a functioning administration, not one where basic communication systems fail,” the caucus leader told The Citizen.

Kayser-Echeozonjoku warned Mayor Dada Morero’s persistence with the multi-year R10 billion deal with the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) would entrench Johannesburg’s financial distress.

Ward councillors this week warned of potential service delivery delays, with Samwu attempting to pressure the administration with a march through the CBD on Wednesday and other tactics.

“It seems that Samwu is facilitating an unofficial go-slow by holding lengthy meetings with members every second day.

“This has been officially reported by Pikitup and appears to be occurring at some other entities, although currently on a smaller scale,” Ward 126 councillor David Brand stated on Wednesday.