Employees livid over docked pay

City of Joburg workers are locked in a dispute over a decison to recover unpaid water bills from their salaries.

Advice slips for three months showed deductions between R250 to R2 000.

Arow has erupted between City of Joburg employees, most of them members of the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu), and the DA-led administration, over an alleged unilateral decision to dock their salaries.

Several employees, most with an average gross salary of about R10 000 and speaking on condition of anonymity, spoke to The Citizen about their shock when the salary advice slips for the past three months showed deductions between R250 to R2 000 for outstanding water bills.

Samwu regional secretary for Joburg, Bafana Zungu, confirmed the union members approached the union’s offices and requested an intervention, as the deductions were never thoroughly explained.

“I am not aware of a decision taken by the municipality to deduct employees’ salaries to recoup debts. Workers are given an opportunity to make arrangements. A challenge arises when the municipality is not making workers aware of such, and instead dock their salaries. This is very bad,” said Zungu.

Luyanda Mfeka, acting director for mayoral communications in mayor Herman Mashaba’s office, clarified: “A total of 2 971 employees owes the city R50 million in excess of 90 days for municipal services, and they don’t have acknowledgement of debt to service the arrears.”

Mfeka said this translated into just under 1% of the total debtor’s book of the city, and said the city and its Municipal Owned Entities “have communicated internally on the matter”.

This statement was rejected by Zungu. “We don’t know of any correspondence between the city of Joburg, and even if there was, it doesn’t give the city the right to deduct from salaries.

“We have a department at Thuso House, where workers can make arrangements. Even those who have made arrangements have had their salaries docked.”

Some insiders have said the city’s decision to collect the R50 million was because the books were not balancing, with Mashaba having been warned by various CFOs during the budget lekgotla the operational budget had to be cut by R1.5 billion.

In a written response to The Citizen, Mfeka explained there was no need for council to adopt a resolution to dock employees’ salaries, as, in terms of the Municipal Systems Act, the directive was lawful.

Mfeka said the directive was in compliance with the code of conduct for Municipal Employees Clause 10, which prescribes that: “a staff member of a municipality may not be in arrears for rates and service charges for a period longer than three months, and a municipality can deduct any outstanding amounts from staff members’ salaries after this period”.

A total of 2 971 employees owes the city R50 million.