Durban - THE eThekwini Municipality’s R101million expenditure for overtime during the Covid-19 national lockdown has sparked fears that the city was still battling to contain the abuse of overtime by its workforce.
The staggering R101m in overtime pay was for employees in the Metro Police, Durban Solid Waste (DSW), Human Settlements and Community Participation units.
EThekwini chief financial officer Krish Kumar yesterday defended the overtime, saying it was not outrageous.
The overtime expenditure, which was part of the R456m Covid-19-related expenditure, was contained in a preliminary report tabled before the city’s executive committee yesterday.
Exco members did not interrogate the spending yesterday, saying they would wait for the report to be finalised. DSW said they might have contributed less than R25m to the total overtime, and incurred it because their staff members came down with Covid-19 and others had to pick up those shifts.
The preliminary report showed that the overtime spending was the biggest expenditure at R101m, followed by PPE spending at R85m, while R68m was paid for social relief supplies like marquees and blankets. The report also revealed that the city forked out R67m on community participation supplies like hampers and vouchers, R13m on water tankers to supply water, and R19m on water and sanitation infrastructure.
Adverts and campaigns set the city back by R1.4m during this period.
Head of DSW Raymond Rampersad said they accumulated overtime after some of their staff were infected with Covid-19.
“In one of our depots in Collingwood we had 41 staff who were infected and we had to close the depot for a month, and 350 of the workers there were at home for a month.”
He said the unit did not have extra staff who it could deploy to the numerous areas that were serviced by Collingwood.
“That means if the truck in Durban North has finished, it will have to go and service all these areas that were being serviced by the staff in the Collingwood Depot.”
Head of metro police Steve Middleton said he could not comment on the report, as he had not seen it.
However, Kumar said most of the overtime would have come from the metro police department because of the extended hours they had to work, especially during lockdown level 5 and 3, to ensure that people complied with the regulations. He said the department also battled staff shortages.
Kumar said that during the lockdown the city was spending R30m a month on overtime, and that was in line with what metro police claimed on overtime each month.
“The overtime pay for the metro police is about R20-25million per month. I am not justifying the (R100million) overtime, but if there are issues, the audit will pick that up, let’s wait for the report to come out,” said Kumar.
DA councillor Nicole Graham said the abuse of overtime in the city was generally rife.
“Controlled overtime is minimal and the system is abused, so it is very difficult to determine what is genuine overtime and when people are pushing their luck.”
She said they would wait for the full audit to test the veracity of what was genuine. She said they were also concerned about the length of time it was taking for city officials to complete the report on Covid-19 spending.
“There has been ample time to investigate this. We await a full report and, undoubtedly, there will be problems - as it was clear that a lot of National Treasury benchmarks were not followed and we will interrogate the report as soon as we have access to it,” she said.
IFP caucus leader Mdu Nkosi said they had yet to get an explanation on the excessive overtime bill.
Nkosi said they were also concerned that the report on Covid-19 had not been finalised, and they had written to the public protector to investigate the spending in eThekwini.
“Our city internal audit unit has not completed their report, we are getting the reports on Covid-19 spending in piecemeal fashion, which creates an impression that not all spending was legitimate.
“For instance, we were told that the city had rented marquees, the figure was high and, after we raised concerns, the city officials came back and told us they had negotiated with the supplier and the figure had been reduced. What is that? This is a municipality, not a spaza shop.
“Its surprising that the DSW cost has now been aligned with Covid-19 spending. The city needs to be cleaned when there are people in town, and during this period the town was almost deserted. The only cleaning that would have happened would have been at the shelters - are they telling us that DSW staff claimed overtime by cleaning the shelters?” asked Nkosi.
Mayor Mxolisi Kaunda said they wanted a comprehensive report on the spending and cost.
“Do not forget about the cost escalation on the report, on what the National Treasury said should be paid, and what was paid,” he said.
The Mercury