Mangaung Metro acting city manager Tebogo Motlashuping has assured workers at the embattled municipality that they will have their salaries paid by Friday.
He made the promise after some workers downed tools and staged a protest at the Bram Fischer Building on Tuesday morning when they failed to get their salaries on time.
The workers, who included solid waste collection teams, offloaded some of the collected garbage at the municipality’s head office as they broke into song and dance while they demanded their salaries and burnt some of the rubbish.
The protesting workers told journalists that they were expecting their salaries, overtime, acting allowances and bonuses for April to by paid by Tuesday but, to their surprise, some of them only had between R46 and R100 deposited in their bank accounts and could not understand how the amounts were arrived at.
Motlashuping, who was appointed last week as part of the interim management team at the municipality which is now under national administration, regretted the turn of events and promised to pay all outstanding salaries before the end of the week.
“It was not our intention that workers (would) not receive their monies,” Motlashuping is said to have told labour representatives.
“We have made a commitment that payroll will capture all the outstanding payments that have to be made by Friday, 29 April.
“We have only been here for less than a week and have already unearthed many issues that make workers dissatisfied.
“When you have a dissatisfied workforce, it impacts negatively on the performance of the institution and results in the collapse of services.”
Motlashuping also pointed out that disciplinary processes will be instituted against the parties at fault.
The administration team has also expressed concern at the leaking of the municipality’s confidential information.
Mangaung spokesperson Qondile Khedama said in a statement the interim management team will look into the issue of overtime and acting positions as part of its work to turn around the city’s financial viability.
“Verification will be done and, later, investigations will ensue to assist the administration in coming up with permanent solution regarding overtime and acting allowances,” said Khedama in the statement.
When the former acting city manager, Mzingisi Nkungwana, was being forced out of the municipality in recent weeks, he told journalists “workers may suffer” as he had been barred from doing his work following alleged clashes with mayor Mxolisi Siyonzana.
Nkungwana has repeatedly claimed his relationship with Siyonzana soured after he blocked several corrupt deals allegedly engineered by the mayor such as the alleged ghost political staff.
Siyonzana last week denied the existence of ghost workers in the municipality and that he was not involved in any corrupt deals. – Staff Reporter