A little over a month since the Council has been sworn and already controversy is swirling around the Endumeni Municipality.

Following a protest on Monday by the South African Municipal Workers Union outside the municipality, demanding that their salaries be increased after the municipality was re-graded by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, COGTA, to a grade 3 municipality,   acting manager MZ Silinga has been suspended.

His contract was to end on September 30 in any event. Desi Padayachee is now the acting municipal manager – one of countless managers who have taken the hot seat since municipal manager, TP Biyela, was suspended three years ago yet is still being paid as his labour case drags on.

Workers also demanded that advertised posts be frozen.
On Monday then-acting municipal manager, MZ Silinga, told workers that the issue of grading is between the unions and the South African Local Government Association, SALGA.
“We will be reviewing old policies to address other problems faced by workers,” said Mr Silinga. Workers were shouting that Mr Silinga has ‘only four days left before he leaves this municipality’. The Speaker of Endumeni Council, Bongiwe Mbatha, asked officials not to charge workers who were participating in the ‘illegal protest’.
Mayor Siboniso Richard Mbatha warned workers ‘for having other meetings while they are still addressing their problem.’
Mr Silinga in candid interview – days before he left Endumeni
The protest follows a memorandum sent by SAMU to the municipal management and COGTA. Various grievances were levelled against Mr Silinga, accusing him of ‘getting a maximum salary even though Council had resolved to give him a mid-point salary’, hiring temporary workers without following due process, the promotion and hiring of ‘cadres and friends’ and allowing security at the homes of two former ANC Councillors, Dlamini and Mbhele.
Asked to comment, Mr Silinga said in a candid interview that the bodyguards had been withdrawn at both homes.
“The decision to give all Councillors bodyguards was a resolution made by the previous Council following a security analysis. I cannot simply withdraw the guards unless another security analysis has been done to ascertain if the security threat has lessened. I wanted the Council to make that decision because I do not want to be accused of allowing former Councillors to be soft targets.”
Turning to his salary, he said the original decision had been to give him a ‘mid-point’ salary. However, since then Council had hired a planning manager on the same salary. “Council decided a manager could not receive the same salary as the person he is reporting to i.e. the municipal manager. Hence, a decision was made to pay the maximum allowed.”
Regarding the 26 temporary workers who were made permanent, Mr Silinga said some of the workers had been temporary for ‘three months, six months and even longer’.
“Legislation says a worker who has been temporary for three months has reasonable expectations that he/she is permanent.
“The decision to make them permanent was done in terms of Labour Relations legislation.”
Asked about the ‘hiring of friends’, Mr Silinga said the posts had been advertised internally and was confident proper procedure had been followed.
“Endumeni Municipality has been in a state of flux for years. We seem to have brought back a measure of administration. Unfortunately politics will also be with us.”
Friday’s Council meeting, where SAMU’s memorandum was to have been discussed, never materialised. Twelve of the 13 councillors were present but Anthon Raubenheimer, DA, was not.
This effectively deadlocked the Council 6-6 – the IFP, DA, EFF coalition versus the ANC block after which the ANC councillors left the meeting.