32 years later, former municipal workers still await pension, retrenchment pay from old apartheid councils
Retrained in 1993 due to apartheid-era strikes, 360 workers in Germiston and Boksburg face an ongoing struggle for promised compensation. Now, an investigation uncovers the missing R46 million.
In 1993, barely a year before the dawn of democracy, 360 municipal workers employed by the former apartheid municipalities of the Greater Germiston and Boksburg Council Municipalities in the old East Rand, were retrenched due to prolonged service delivery boycotts by residents of Katlehong, Thokoza, and Vosloorus.
A large percentage of the retrenched municipal workers were un-graded labourers and municipal office workers consisting of gardeners, office cleaners and general workers, together with town sweepers, garbage and open toilet bucket collectors.
Some were part of the local municipal by-laws police who often were stationed at the entrances of black townships as guards of the council and the local communities who were popularly known in the townships as “Black-Jacks”.
After they were retrenched, workers were promised to be re-employed in the new democratic dispensation of the country’s first black president under Nelson Mandela in April 1994. However, even though a few of the management staff were reinstated, many of these workers were not re-employed in the Mandela government, neither did they receive their retrenchment package nor were they paid their retirement or pension payout.
Today, almost 32-years later, former municipal workers like Mzinto Mpingana are still waiting to paid what is due to them from the old Germiston and Boksburg municipal council pension and retrenchment pay-out.
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Many of the old municipal workers infused into the new democratic government were later recruited into different government departments, including the SAPS while others were transferred to the South African Railway Police and the Metro police.
Former retrenched employee, 80-year-old, Mpingana, a migrant labourer from the Eastern Cape, told Kathorus MAIL that he started working for the Germston City Council Municipality in early 1950’s as an ungraded garbage remover and street sweeper in the old Germiston town and in surrounding suburbs.
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He described how he was among the initial 360 retrenched ungraded workers by the old Germiston City Council due to the ongoing massive anti-apartheid strikes, which had affected many towns and townships in the former Pretoria, Witwatersrand, and Vaal (PWV) areas in what is today known as Gauteng.
According to Mpingana, the workers’ retrenchment packages as well as their pension pay-out were transferred to the transitional black senior municipal administrators who were to be infused into the new democratic dispensation.
Private investigator Thabo Buzwa, who has been assisting the retrenched employees about the missing funds since 2015, told the MAIL that although the promise to settle the outstanding issues were made, he confirmed the promise was never kept.
“Instead, the retrenched municipal workers have for three decades remained jobless and became destitute as they were made to wait since 1993,” said Buzwa.
Only an estimated 30% of the retrenched municipal workers were re-employed as promised, and it is that percentage which, according to Buzwa, is still waiting to have their employment benefits from the old municipalities paid.
Buzwa said the latest developments about the funds could be announced soon.
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