The Head of the Department of Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Mokete Duma, tells OFM News that the Provincial Department of Treasury and Cogta reached an agreement which could see workers finally receiving their monies this Friday. Workers are yet to be paid after two months. The Free State High Court slapped the municipality with an adverse order, which saw the municipal account attached by the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu), following failure by the municipality, since 2012, to pay pension fund and other third party contributions. Duma says the troubled municipality will be assisted, through the Xhariep District Municipality, to ensure that the R26 million pension debt to Samwu will be attended to.

“We have to look into ways of what needs to be done to make the municipality sustainable, and among the things that we have already done, is that we have developed a financial recovery plan which we will still have to adopt. We will check whether the current council will adopt it, or the newly elected council will do so. But remember, the financial recovery plan is to ensure sustainability over a period of time, so that’s what we are currently working on,” he adds.

Samwu previously said the leadership of the troubled municipality should take the blame for the financial crisis currently besieging the municipality. Samwu’s provincial secretary, Tiisetso Mahlatsi, told OFM News that the municipality has been plunged into financial distress with its bank account attached for failing to pay workers' pension fund contributions since 2012.

Mahlatsi said the current management of the municipality has previously made commitments to pay the R26 million pension fund debt, but they have dismally failed to do so, despite commitments.

Meanwhile, the ANC’s Interim Provincial Committee (IPC) spokesperson, Oupa Khoabane, told OFM News that the matter has since been handed over to the legislative committee to scrutinise and deal with. He blamed the financial woes at the cash-strapped Trompsburg-based Kopanong municipality for a lack of leadership. Khoabane said both political and administrative leadership have failed to perform due diligence at the municipality and asked if heads should roll at the municipality. Khoabane said the ANC cannot micromanage issues of municipalities.

OFM News