ABAQULUSI municipality allocated R5million for overtime in the previous budget, but staff had processed claims adding up to between R1.4million and R1.9million every month.
Councillors agreed, when working on the new budget, that the overtime claimed was grossly excessive and the practice of claiming overtime unnecessarily needed to be stopped as it is draining the town’s coffers.
In some cases, the claiming of overtime has constituted blatant fraud. An example picked up by DA councillor, Alta de Kock, showed an employee at the Mondlo Water Works claiming 180 hours of overtime for the month of May.
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According to Cllr de Kock, this could have only been possible if the employee had worked 36 days in the month of May, however, an attendance register indicates that he was absent without leave for three days in May, he had taken two days’ leave and had been on training for four days, leaving him with 22 days in which to rake up 180 hours of overtime. The employee, who earns a R9 000 salary, will be taking home an additional R16 000 for the overtime he ‘worked’.
Cllr de Kock says she will be dealing with this case in the executive council, and will be tackling instances of fraud with the department managers and the Chief Financial Officer.
Deputy mayor, Jerry Sibiya, said that the new budget has no funds allocated to overtime, and staff will have to apply for overtime in advance, justify why they need to work overtime, and have the overtime approved before they can be paid. Money that had been allocated to overtime in previous years, has been allocated to filling critical vacancies instead. This is expected to benefit the community by creating more employment opportunities and alleviating the need for staff to work around the clock and then some.
