The Oudtshoorn Municipality says it is investigating how an ordinary DA councillor was paid the salary of a mayoral committee member for more than a year.
This follows revelations by the Office of the Auditor-General that
councillor Marcellis Theyse had received nearly double his salary since he was voted in.
Theyse assumed position as councillor for Ward 13 after a by-election on May 30, 2018 following the death of the then-councillor.
Spokesperson for the municipality, Ntobeko Mangqwengqwe, said: “We can confirm that there was an overpayment of salary to an ordinary councillor.
“The matter is being investigated. We can also assure that the money will be recovered.”
The ANC in the council has questioned how the reported error could have been allowed to occur for such a long period without anyone taking notice of it.
The party’s chief whip in the council, Jongilizwei Tyatya, said they only learned of the issue last month during a visit from the auditor-general’s office.
“The question is there are five mayoral council members; how then did the person loading these details think it was okay to add a sixth member to it and it went unnoticed,” Tyatya said.
“An ordinary councillor would earn around R19000 to R20000 while a mayco member would earn around R40000. There needs to be an
investigation into how any of this might have happened in that finance department.”
Just last week, the municipality announced the appointments of an acting chief financial officer, Louis Fourie, as well as an acting director for technical services, Jason Solomons, after the two people who previously held these positions resigned.
The municipality’s mayor, Colan Sylvester, is also facing disciplinary action from within his own party, with 11 charges against him following a spat between him and municipal manager Allen Paulse.