Great Kei councillors’ turn to feel cold wind

GREAT Kei Municipality’s 13 councillors won’t be getting their June salaries today because the municipality is bankrupt.

Newly-appointed administrator of the municipality, who has been tasked with saving a sinking ship, Mzubanzi Silinga, said yesterday that Great Kei Municipality’s coffers had run dry.

Last month municipal staff felt the full brunt of the situation when they did not receive salaries which should be paid on the 25th of every month – and up to now have not yet been paid.

Silinga said he had requested, through the provincial department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta), that National Treasury give them an advance to help them pay staff salaries and that of the councillors.

“The institution is bankrupt, such that employees were not paid their salaries for the month of May and councillors are not going to be paid [today] for the month of June, which points to the seriousness of the financial situation here,” said Silinga.

“We are working on it so that we can get an advance from our equitable share, so that we can effect payments of those salaries. We are pushing but I cannot give a deadline as it all depends on Treasury,” he said.

Silinga, who is serving as an administrator, has a mountain to climb, especially after arriving when workers were on an “illegal strike”.

Yesterday he expressed relief that some staff had returned to work, although not everyone.

According to him, the matter was now being finalised through the Local Labour Forum (LLF).

One of Silinga’s mandates is to see to it that, before his tenure as administrator ends in November, a municipal manager is appointed at Great Kei.

Other deliverables Silinga was given by Cogta MEC Fikile Xasa include:

● Ensuring that supply chain management systems are in place for the smooth running of procurement management processes;

● Facilitating the review of all financially related policies, especially credit control and revenue collection;

● Attending to legal matters confronting Great Kei including “litigations that seek to rip off the municipality’s finances”; and

● Ensuring the municipality cooperates fully with an ongoing forensic investigation into its administration. —