Pretoria - The City of Tshwane has been rocked by an alleged scam after 1400 ghost workers were fingered for illegally drawing monthly salaries from the municipality.
Head administrator Mpho Nawa told the Pretoria News that those identified in the corruption were employed as part of the Expanded Public Works Programme.
The alleged corruption was uncovered through a process recently undertaken by the City to verify the legitimacy of more than 25 000 employees.
Nawa said the City would launch more probes with a view to hold those implicated in the scam accountable.
“Obviously the money would have to be recouped from those responsible for such corruption,” he said.
Yesterday, the Pretoria News was flooded with calls from workers who complained that they had not received their salaries.
Nawa urged workers to verify their status with the City, saying those who had done so would be paid.
The move by the City had resulted in salaries of almost 7000 employees being withheld pending the verification of their authenticity as part of the metro staff.
On Tuesday, the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) reacted with anger to the news that many workers won’t receive their salaries.
Samwu’s regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane blamed the acting city manager Masabata Mutlaneng for recalling salaries of employees whose status as City employees were still to be verified.
Tladinyane said the decision was taken after the City and unions agreed to embark on a process to deal with ghost employees on the City’s payroll.
“We and the City could not agree on a process to conduct the verification process. Our view had been that to ensure a seamless process workers would be given enough time to verify their status. The employer had initially agreed to pay all workers on August 26 and finalise the verification process before the September 2020 pay run,” said Tladinyane.
He accused the City of reneging on the consensus between the parties and informed unions on Friday that over 7 000 individuals on the City’s payroll would not not be paid this month.
Tladinyane said the union had brought to the attention of the employer and heads of departments that it was impractical to verify more than 25 000 employees within five days considering Covid-19 regulations.
“It is against the law to stop employees’ salaries without proper course and lawful reasons. Workers were given limited time to verify and those without e-mails were disadvantaged since they could not get messages on time. Some of the employees working from home were not properly informed and were unable to verify on time,” he said.
Tladinyane claimed that some employees had verified their authenticity but their salaries were recalled.
“We have advised the employer that the process to verify outstanding employees be finalised before the next salary run of September to ensure that all employees are given enough time to verify themselves,” he said.
He accused the administrators of being out of touch with practical operations of the municipality, especially on human resource issues.
Pretoria News