The Democratic Alliance in J.B. Marks says it is deeply concerned that poor management and financial errors continue to fuel municipal employees’ suffering.
Jeanne Adriaanse, a DA councillor, was referring to the recent incident in which protesting municipal workers dumped human waste in the municipal building.
‘This month, the end of June, extra money was deducted from their salaries at once. Some workers were paid R15 and others did not receive a cent. This is an outcome to a systems error, which saw some employees being overpaid on their overtime payments in April and May.’
She says it is clear that the cadre deployment is having a negative impact on the management of the municipality and its ability to deliver services.
‘We will write a letter to the acting municipal manager, Cyril Henry, demanding answers for this act of gross mismanagement. The municipality must also assure the workers that such a mistake will not be repeated in future.
‘This has resulted in a huge uproar with the affected parties sabotaging the daily activities of the municipality. Disgruntled workers threw rubbish and faeces in the municipal buildings and in the parking area. At one stage, they deactivated the sewerage pumps in Potchefstroom.
https://www.citizen.co.za/potchefstroom-herald/49631/unauthorised-deductions-land-j-b-marks-poo/
‘The DA does not condone violent protests that undermine service delivery and further hamper efforts to deliver services to the people. But this could have been avoided had the ANC put the interests of workers, the council and the people first,’ she said.
Adriaanse highlighted the plight of the workers. ‘These workers have families and family responsibilities. ‘This month, to date, the workers haven’t received payslips either. This will have a huge snowball effect as they will be unable to buy food, pay their services accounts, debt and daily expenses.’
‘We call upon the workers to remain calm while we will put pressure on the municipality to come up with better solutions and affordable payment plans to retrieve the money that was overpaid.
It is time for a change where the people of J.B. Marks, including municipal employees, are prioritised. This is change only a DA-led government can bring,’ she concluded.
