ADM’s stringent belt-tightening draws Samwu ire

The troubled Amathole District Municipality wants to save R75m by suspending salary increases and drastically slashing cellphone allowances by 70% from next month.

The municipality also wants to stop sending bills via the post office and go digital to save on postage money.

These are some of the measures that the municipality is planning to decrease its ballooning salary bill, which ADM spokesperson Noni Madikizela-Vuso said stood at R78.8m a year.

The municipality plans to implement this from the 2019/20 financial year, starting next month.

While the ADM is embarking on the cost-cutting measures, this has angered at least one trade union, with the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) describing ADM’s plans as illegal.

The slashing of cellphone allowances would be implemented for six months from July 1.

Madikizela-Vuso could not say how much the cellphone allowances were because human resources staff had gone home at the time of writing.

In a labour forum meeting on Monday evening, the municipality made it clear to labour that it would be going ahead with the budget cuts with or without their approval, unionists, who spoke anonymously for fear of reprisals, said.

The Daily Dispatch has seen a special mayoral committee budget balancing proposal to reduce its salary bill by R75m in the 2019/20 financial year.

The mayoral committee has proposed not to backdate a 2.5% salary notch for 2018/19.

This will align [the municipality] to grade 6 level of remuneration Amathole DM

Cost-saving proposals by the cash-strapped municipality

“This will align [Amathole district municipality] to grade 6 remuneration level.

“Overtime has been limited to R10m,” reads the municipality’s proposals, which unions said were made official on Monday.

Other cost-cutting proposals include:

● Telephone budget cut by R2m; and

● Debt write-off to be reduced to 40%.