This follows the non-payment of their salaries for two months and counting. Almost 450 municipal workers, including officials and union-affiliated workers, are affected by the non-payment as a result of the Free State High Court which ordered the attachment of the municipal account. It's understood that the go-slow began a few days after the troubled municipality failed to pay salaries.

OFM News visited the local offices in Trompsburg and can report that no worker at the municipality was around or inside the premises. The municipality owes the South African Municipal Workers' (Samwu) Pension Fund a whopping R26 million after failing to pay the municipal workers' contributions towards the pension fund since 2012.

In 2020, former Finance Minister Tito Mboweni said Kopanong was among a few municipalities that were failing to pay contributions towards the workers' pension fund.

He said the practice of non-payment of pension contributions by employers to the pension fund was a criminal offence in terms of Section 13A of the Pensions Fund Act, after the Act was amended in 2013.

Mboweni said the Act also makes employers personally liable in respect of non-payment of pension contributions to a pension fund.

OFM News understands that Samwu has since opened a criminal case against the municipality, which the Hawks in the Free State confirmed. The Hawks said the matter was with the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to make a formal announcement on the matter.

OFM News previously reported that the DA has since laid a complaint against the cash-strapped municipality, which is struggling to pay for services such as water, and also salaries of its employees for the past two months and counting, despite constant promises. The DA Member of the Provincial Legislature, Karabo Khakhau, said for years the party has made countless strides to engage the leadership of the municipality regarding these issues, with no solution. Khakhau said the municipality has incurred a whopping R400 million debt with the water utility Bloem Water over a number of years.

OFM News/Lucky Nkuyane & Kekeletso Mosebetsi