Former City of Cape Town councillors are to receive bonus pay-outs of about R45 000 each as part of a multi-million-rand national plan by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
In a move which was yesterday slammed by the SA Municipal Workers Union (Samwu), the department has asked councillors who served a full term from March 2006 to May 2011, but who were not re-elected, to submit their details to their respective municipalities in order to claim the once-off “gratuity” for which the national Treasury will foot the bill.
The department says it is acting on the recommendation of the Independent Commission on the Remuneration of Office Bearers.
“This constitutes government’s recognition of the invaluable contributions made by councillors in the delivery of services as well as the efforts to changing the lives of the people for the better,” the department’s national spokes-man Mbulelo Musi said.
Cape Town mayoral committee member Alderman Demetri Qually, who is the city’s representative in the SA Local Government Association (Salga), confirmed yesterday that the national government had agreed to pay former councillors a three-month salary bonus. Local government budgets would not be affected, he said.
The bonus was part of a plan to treat the three spheres of government equally.
He said the pay-out was not based on performance.
“I can see that people can get upset and see it as a handout… but the large majority of councillors take their jobs very seriously,” he said.
According to a Salga circular dated December 15, R266 million has been set aside from the national fiscus to fund the gratuity.
At that time 179 councillors from 16 of the 61 municipalities in KwaZulu-Natal, 228 from 20 of the 30 municipalities in the Western Cape and 121 from eight of the 20 municipalities in Gauteng had responded to the department’s call.
In total, 154 of the country’s 274 municipalities have provided Salga with the details of 2 422 non-returning councillors who meet the requirements. Tahir Sema, Samwu’s
To Page 5