Mogale - The Democratic Alliance on Sunday called on Gauteng co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC Paul Mashatile to do a skills audit of Mogale City employees following the reinstatement of ghost workers.
"The ANC have reappointed cadre ghost workers in the mayor’s office at a cost of R20 million per year to taxpayers," DA Mogale city caucus leader Michael Holenstein said.
"The DA has been reliably informed that the municipal manager and HR department have back-dated their starting dates to 1 April 2017. This means that these workers will be paid three month’s salary without having done a single day’s work. The ANC has built a corrupt system to feed themselves while the people suffer. We need a total change to the system," he said.
The previous DA-led administration got rid of these ghost workers, some of whom were earning more than R1 million a year without ever reporting to work.
The DA made sure that when contract positions became vacant these posts were advertised so that the residents of Mogale City could apply. It put a stop to jobs being reserved for ANC cadres "who needed to be deployed without being capable of doing the work", he said.
"While we were in office we made progress. We cut the budget deficit by R200 million. Our budget would have seen the municipality have R30 million in the bank by the end of this financial year, instead of being in debt.
"The ANC is determined to take Mogale City deeper into the financial hole that we tried to pull it out of. The DA will not sit back and allow this to happen; we remain committed to delivering on the call for change," Holenstein said.