Durban - THE eThekwini Municipality's human settlements and infrastructure committee on Monday approved an increase in the stipend to beneficiaries of the Zibambele poverty alleviation programme. An additional 1010 beneficiaries and 20 overseers (supervisors) are to be employed in the 2019/20 financial year.
The programme employs 6 295 beneficiaries and 140 supervisors to work two days a week clearing road surfaces, drains and verges in various parts of the city. The committee recommended that the beneficiaries, including their supervisors, be paid between R1 075.05 and R4 647.37 per month inclusive of the 1% UIF.
For the 2018/2019 financial year an amount of R85.6million was budgeted for the programme, and for 2019/2020 the committee recommended the budget be increased to over R102.9m.
DA committee member Zamani Khuzwayo said they would not approve the item as the recruitment process was not transparent.
“We have DA wards where people brought in under this programme are not known to the areas. This programme is politically aligned and the fact that people are working in our wards explains that. We are abstaining,” Khuzwayo said.
He later told Daily News that the policy guiding the programme provides that beneficiaries from the programme must be residents of the same ward, and that there were destitute people who were overlooked and the jobs given to those unknown.
Committee chairperson Thanduxolo Sabelo was not moved by the protest, insisting that the programme was meant for the poor and destitute.
“So the DA is abstaining from an agenda item which seeks to increase a stipend for the poor? How do we know where these people are from? The appointment of people is a task for human resources. I don't want to interfere with that,” Sabelo said.
The IFP supported the increase.