The Star reports that the Public Servants Association (PSA) and several Cosatu and Saftu unions have been fingered for allegedly misrepresenting their membership in the Public Health and Social Development Sectoral Bargaining Council, which allowed them to receive more money from the council.
This was revealed by an independent audit report conducted by the firm Kreston and released earlier this month.
Unions are required to submit their audited membership at the end of every financial year to the bargaining council, which it must further audit.
In terms of discrepancies between members submitted by unions and membership verified through the National Treasury, the PSA has recorded the most unaccounted membership figures among the 10 affected unions, at 9 279.
Of the 77892 members submitted by the PSA to the council as of December31 last year, only 68613 could be verified by the Persal (payroll system) report submitted by the Treasury.
According to the report, the unions denied inflating membership and instead said deductions form their members were being cancelled where no cancellation letter had been received by the unions, and that some members took leave without pay, as some of the reasons they could not account for their stated membership.
Yesterday, PSA deputy general manager Tahir Maepa confirmed that despite the unions drawing money from the council based on their submitted memberships, not all of their members were paid up.
He said many of the unaccounted for members from the unions had their subscriptions cancelled, but not in line with the Labour Relations Act.
“People join the unions in terms of the Labour Relations Act, and they can terminate their membership in terms of the act, and the act prescribes how you terminate your labour relations,” Maepa said. “We are not denying that we are not receiving money from these members, but what we are saying is that those people never cancelled their membership with the PSA.”
He alleged that there was a conspiracy within the public service where public servants working with Persal cancelled subscriptions for the PSA.
“We also know the politics behind this and we are working on it. Persal must explain because we have organisational rights. There is no reason for them to allow cancellations without people complying with the Labour Relations Act,” he said.
The report could see all Saftu unions – including its biggest affiliate in the council, Nupsaw – removed from the council as their real combined membership has been exposed as not meeting the 30000 minimum threshold for participating in the council.
Nupsaw’s general secretary, Success Mataitsane, said the report, which stated that 3250 of its 27025 members were unaccounted for, was biased and aimed at removing Saftu unions from the council.
He said most of the unaccounted for members were community healthcare workers who were being paid through a private service provider.
“The Gauteng Department of Health has outsourced the payroll of its community health workers. We have over 3000 members who are community health workers,” Mataitsane said.
Most unions did not respond to questions by the time of publication.
The original of this report by Siviwe Feketha appeared on page 7 of The Star of 30 October 2018
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