Salga faces revocation of employer registration
THE labour registrar has warned the South African Local Government Association (Salga) it would revoke its registration as an employer association.
Labour registrar Lehlohonolo Molefe said the association had breached sections of the Labour Relations Act and had ceased to function in line with its own constitution. The warning, dated May 29, was published in last Friday’s Government Gazette.
Molefe said Salga had failed to comply with the provisions of sections 98, 99 and 100 of the Labour Relations Act, which related to disclosure and submission of financial records and audited financial statements to the registrar.
Section 98 requires that every registered employers’ organisation must keep books and records of its income, expenditure, assets and liabilities. Section 99 compels the organisation to keep a list of its members, minutes of meetings and ballot papers for a period of three years.
Salga is one of the country’s biggest employer associations, whose members include all the country’s 257 local governments. It accounts to parliament annually on its performance and expenditure. It also represented municipalities during collective bargaining with its employees.
It was unclear which sections of its constitution Salga failed to function in line with. The Department of Labour did not answer questions sent on Friday and subsequent requests for comment.
DA-run municipalities in the Western Cape threatened in February to quit the organisation if it failed to do its work in strict compliance with the constitution and the Public Finance Management Act.
On Monday, Salga said it had lodged an objection to the notice and had engaged with the labour registrar to resolve the matter.
Salga said it had not declared its membership by March 31 in line with section 100. “This oversight has since been corrected. The audit of Salga’s financial statements for 2017-18 is under way,” it said.
The association said it had never breached sections 98 and 99 of the act as stated by the registrar. It said it was audited annually and had received five consecutive clean audits.
Salga is funded through a “combination of sources, including primarily membership fees (81%) and donations from the donor community for specific projects”, its website said.