The account was attached following a Free State High Court order over its R26 million debt of the municipal workers pension fund contributions stemming from 2012.

READ MORE: FS municipal account attached

The two entities recently approached the Free State High Court to try to uplift the attachment order and it’s understood that through the guidance of the court the parties were able to reach a settlement where the cash-strapped municipality was expected to make a payment of about R10 million towards the fund.

OFM News previously reported that the municipality managed to make two payments to workers who had been without a salary for almost three months following the financial difficulties.

READ MORE: Kopanong makes another payment to workers

Before the account attachment, the municipality had about R19 million in its account and workers were paid from the R9 million which was left in its account after the R10 million commitment to the pension fund for contributions.

Previously, the municipal manager (MM), Martin Kubeka, of the troubled Municipality had sent a communique to workers that the account was sitting with roughly R19 million when they began talks with the Municipal Workers Retired Fund (MWRF).

“When we were on the verge of a proposed agreement, the MWRF demanded a once-off payment of R10 million to lift the attachment, and we agreed to this because with the remaining R9 million plus the R6.5 million that [Cooperative Governance (Cogta)] has committed, we would have been able to attend to two salaries, those of September and October, with the view that when we receive our Equitable Share tranche we would attend to salaries of November and December,” he said in a communique.

Kubeka said the “MWRF, however, decided to withdraw R6.5 million from our account and now they request a further R10 million, failing which they will attach the account further by virtue of the Court Order, which makes payment of two months' salaries practically impossible”.

The Kopanong Municipality is among several municipalities in the province which survives mainly with the national government's equitable share. They don’t have enough revenue from services rendered, due to a large population of an indigenous group of people which the municipality has the responsibility of providing with clean water and electricity, amongst others.

The municipality, which owes R26 million to the South African Municipal Workers Union's (Samwu) pension fund, is expected to be placed under administration following financial difficulties.

This is to allow for the financial recovery plan at the municipality which also has its account frozen due to the non-payment of these pension fund contributions since 2012. According to the Head of the Department (HOD) of Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Mokete Duma, the Free State Executive Council (Exco) will soon make its decision whether or not the administration process should be invoked at the troubled municipality, which will be almost similar to those sanctioned at the Mangaung Metro Municipality in 2019.

OFM News