Central SA
Free State municipal workers still to be paid─── LUCKY NKUYANE 14:24 Tue, 14 Jun 2022
Workers at the troubled Masilonyana Municipality in the Free State are still waiting with bated breath to know when they will receive their salaries.
Workers of the Theunissen-based local municipality are yet get paid after more than two weeks.
According to the Department of Cooperative Governance's (Cogta) spokesperson, Sello Dithebe, this municipality, and others, are facing serious challenges which some are say are historical. Dithebe says financial resources and human resources needs to be put in place for the municipalities to function well.
Another ailing municipality, the Trompsburg-based Kopanong Local Municipality, is yet to pay its workers for the month of May and has already given a notice that salaries for June may not be paid on time.
He says they are working with municipalities but he cannot give a clear indication as to when the situation will turn around.
“Everything is being done to work with them, to ensure that the situation is turned around. I cannot at this point in time say within a certain period the situation would be turned around. There is a great deal of enthusiasm, a great deal of determination from the part of the MEC, Mxolisi Dukwana, leading his team within Cogta to ensure that those municipalities are turned around,” he adds.
OFM News previously reported that a total of eleven cash strapped municipalities have reportedly approached the departments of Treasury and Cogta for a bail-out, merely two months after the 2021/2022 financial year-end.
