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Financial Mail writes that collapsing municipal infrastructure and sporadic service delivery have left businesses and residents scrambling for alternative service providers.
Now, increasingly, municipal employees are feeling the pinch as municipal dysfunction deepens. Over the past year, 27 municipalities have failed to pay salaries to about 50,000 workers after running out of money for periods of between three and six months. Nonpayment of workers is becoming more widespread and frequent. The SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) is candid about the severity of the problem. “This is the worst it has ever been. Sure, it has happened in the past, but not on this scale and at this rate,” general secretary Dumisane Magagula pointed out. “We are literally witnessing a collapse of local government,” Cosatu spokesperson Matthew Parks noted. One Eastern Cape council recently paid its workers in grocery vouchers, leaving them to scramble to pay for other essentials such as transport and school fees. Cosatu and Samwu are now seeking legal advice on how to force the government to ensure that municipal employees are paid on time, every month. The worst province is the Free State, with seven local councils consistently failing to pay staff, followed by the Northern Cape, North West, Limpopo, the Eastern Cape and Gauteng (one council). In some municipalities, even where salaries are paid, pension and medical aid payments are in arrears for many months. Samwu has taken the matter up with the pension fund adjudicator. Most of the country’s 66 dysfunctional municipalities are run by the ANC, with nonpayment largely not emanating from coalition-run municipalities.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Natasha Marrian at Financial Mail (subscriber access only)
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page