KwaDukuza Municipality’s overtime decision sparks controversy
Effective from March 16, the KwaDukuza Municipality has restricted overtime work, indicating that calls for municipal assistance will only be addressed between 7.30am and 4pm, including weekends and public holidays.
A clampdown on municipal overtime has raised widespread concerns about after-hours service delivery and by-law enforcement.
The KwaDukuza municipality (KDM) put an end to all overtime work on March 16, except in specific cases, citing resource constraints.
Calls for municipal help will now only be answered between 7.30am and 4pm, inclusive of weekends and public holidays, presumably until the end of the current financial year on June 30.
Life-threatening issues, which KDM lists as “line down, poles down, house on fire, electrical apparatus on fire” will still be attended to, as will ‘major’ power outages.
It is the second time that the municipality has limited overtime this year, after a two-week period in February before council approved an adjustment budget with an extra R17.2-million for overtime costs.
At that time, in a municipal circular on February 12, municipal manager Nhlanhla Mdakane cited a distressed salaries budget caused by overspending as the reason for overtime limits.
The extra R17.2-million raised KDM’s total overtime budget for 2023/24 to R71-million.
Whether that amount has proved insufficient to handle genuine overtime costs or the decision by KDM is an attempt to curb the overtime being taken advantage of, is currently unclear.
The municipality previously confirmed to the Courier that overtime was being abused by some business units but did not respond in time for this article.
It raises questions about both the upcoming Easter influx this weekend and the spate of electricity outages in recent weeks.
Municipal safety officers are employed by KDM and concerns were raised that multi-disciplinary festive operations would be impacted by the overtime decision.
The joint operations have proved hugely successful in cutting down on by-law infractions and keeping the coastline safe for visitors at Easter and Christmas over the past few years.
Roleplayers from Saps and the Ballito Neighbourhood Watch confirmed however, that relevant safety measures would still take place this weekend.
As for outages, local ward councillors said they were concerned about apparent delayed response times since the overtime moratorium.
“The Hillary, Zen, Gillian and Leonora Drive cluster in Ballito had a 56-hour outage last week,” said Ward 6 councillor, Tammy Colley.
“On Thursday evening it was confirmed the outage was due to a cable fault. A specialist cable company had to be called in to locate the fault, which only took place on Saturday.”
Ward 22 councillor, Privi Makhan, said a simple trip in her ward took a full 24 hours to repair.
“We have further noticed a frequency in outages since the moratorium and have therefore asked for reassurance that the network is not being compromised or sabotaged by any entities with nefarious intent,” said Makhan.
She said the KwaDukuza Democratic Alliance had written to electrical services director at KDM, Sibusiso Jali, asking for clarity and transparency.
KDM had not responded at the time of publication.
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