They accused the municipality of robbing them of their funds and were demanding it be paid back.

The workers were demonstrating inside the municipality building. Some were sitting outside the building and had stopped working for a couple of hours. During an interview with Mpumalanga News, one of the protesters alleged that the municipality had deducted money, claiming it was for their pension fund.

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“It was brought to our attention that our employer, the City of Mbombela, had deducted money from our salaries, but did not transfer some of it to the municipal gratuity fund (MGF). The money they have in their position is from 2010 to 2016; we heard it was about R14m.

“They have managed to send money to the MGF from 2017 to 2021. Our problem is that as the election will be taking place next month, new people will enter the office and it will be harder for us to get our money back. As workers we approached MGF, and they told us that even if the municipality sends the funds to them, it is too late to add that to our retirement funds.

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“We feel it is better that the municipality gives us the money back, since we worked hard for it.

“We do not understand how they would do something like this to us. This is all because we work hard and believed they were putting all the money aside for when we finally retire,” he said.

The protesters said they would continue until the municipality paid them back their money. The newspaper contacted the municipality for comment regarding these allegations. By the time of going to press, it had not received feedback.