VANDERBIJLPARK.- “It is our moral responsibility as the Emfuleni Municipality to reach out to our community when the service provider is not treating their employees well in terms of salary payments.”
This was said by Sipho Mnguni, an adviser in the Emfuleni Local Municipalities (ELM) Municipal Manager (MM) offices.
Mnguni was addressing the media and workers of the Expanded Public Workers Programne (EPWP) on 21 January in Vanderbijlpark.
The workers had come to complain to ELM officials that ‘On Board’, a service provide contracted to ELM for the EPWP, had not paid them for the last four months.
Kenneth Maloma, Lerato Msibi and Nomthandazo Zwane who are some of the disgruntled workers, said they are employed yet have nothing to put on their tables to feed their families. “Our employer told us that they do not have money to pay us as they have not been paid as the ELM bank accounts had been frozen or attached by a Chinese company and Eskom.”
Mnguni replied by saying that they (ELM) have a contract with On Board and not its employees.
“The municipality does not have a mandate to speak to these employees in the absence of their employer. The municipality only owes the service provider salary for two months.
“ (It must be noted that) We do not intend to renew the contract,” he said, adding that the latest invoice by On Board was only submitted this month (January) which according to their contractual agreement is already too late to make a payment for.
“However, we hope that before month end their crisis would have been sorted out,” he said. Thabo Ndwandwe from On Board disputed the allegations made by the employees that they are being owned four months’ salary saying that it is only two month’s salaries that the workers are owed. However, he assured them that they will be paid soon.