These workers, who were arrested in 2019 for alleged public violence, re-appeared at the Trompsburg Magistrate's Court on Monday to face these charges. Their legal counsel informed Magistrate Rosinah Sepato that the non-payment of workers by the municipality would have detrimental effects to some of the travelling suspects in this case. Their legal counsel, Johan Kramer, then asked for a postponement to 2022 to allow workers to least receive their payments to able to travel for the trial.

The state prosecutor, Leon Ehlers, also shared the same sentiments and agreed with Kramer to have the case postponed.

Ehlers informed Magistrate Sepato that Monday's proceedings caused serious difficulties.

This case was set to sit outside Trompsburg but due to technical glitches the case was then transferred to Trompsburg. Ehlers was also concerned about the health of some of the workers and also the travelling costs.

This led to the case being postponed to 31 January 2022. Meanwhile, aggrieved workers of the Kopanong Local Municipality expressed their frustrations on not receiving their paycheques for more than two months, stating that these are some of the issues that led to the arrest of some workers in 2019.  

OFM News/Kekeletso Mosebetsi and Lucky Nkuyane