An internal memorandum, dated December 20, 2023, was circulated by the MDM to all councillors addressing the payments. The DA’s Clr Lebeus Ramalepe said in a statement that MDM intends to coordinate with the bank to reverse these erroneous payments within ten working days. “The DA strongly condemns the municipality’s indifferent approach in handling this matter and insists on urgent consequence management for all officials responsible for such gross negligence.

Furthermore, the DA calls upon all councillors who received these illegal payments to promptly return the money,” he said. He added that they have written to the municipal manager, Tshepo Mogano, requesting a comprehensive cost recovery plan and urgent communication of banking details for the return of the duplicated payments to the council.

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“We will closely monitor the process of retrieving the double pay and will ensure that consequence management is implemented to hold responsible officials accountable to protect the residents and ratepayers,” he said. Odas Ngobeni, MDM spokesperson, told the Herald last week that a process to recover the money was initiated immediately, and communication with the banks and affected councillors and employees was done.

“A progress report will be presented to the mayoral committee, and subsequently to council,” he said.