Pretoria - The knives are out for the City of Tshwane’s administrators following their latest fallout with the SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) over a decision to withhold the salaries for an estimated 7 000 workers.
The salaries were withheld pending a process by the City to verify the legitimacy of more than 25 000 employees.
Irked by the decision, the union has called on Local Government MEC Lebogang Maile to fire the team of administrators he appointed in March following dissolution of council.
The union’s regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane said workers had lost patience with the administrators. He blamed them for “deteriorating labour relations” with the unions.
He said under the administrators unions had problems with the City honouring collective bargaining agreements, which included non-payment of salary increases and sabotaging benchmarking payments.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was the City’s decision to recall salaries of 7000 employees this week.
Tladinyane said: “We had to lead fierce battles to ensure that collective bargaining was restored and we ensured that workers secured what they deserved.
“We have noted that these administrators were initially meant to be in Tshwane for three months and beyond that point it was clear that they had run out of steam, out of breath and started making obvious mistakes.”
He called on Maile to “recall these administrators”, saying the union believed “they have failed in the tasks which they had been deployed to the City for”.
Meanwhile, head administrator Mpho Nawa said the City resolved to undertake a verification process after the Department of Group Audit and Risk had flagged some employees it had suspected of being in the employ of the City through fraudulent means.
The City wanted to ascertain the exact number of legitimate employees.
“We informed its employees and the union representatives of an intention to embark on an employee verification process from August 14 to 19.
“The process experienced some technical glitches which led to some legitimate employees not receiving their monthly salaries on Wednesday morning,” Nawa said.
On Tuesday, he said 1400 ghost workers had been identified in an alleged fraudulent hiring scam.
The City extended the verification process to August 25 and 26 to afford the employees the final opportunity to verify their employment status.
Nawa said employees whose status had been verified but did not receive their salaries were to receive their payment before midnight yesterday.
The outstanding ones would be paid through the special salary run scheduled for today. Nawa said it was false for the union to accuse the administrators of withholding salaries of more than 7000 employees.
“The verification process is for all the people of Tshwane to know they are paying salaries of people who are legally on the City’s payroll.”
Pretoria News