This is the opinion of Lejweleputswa’s South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU). The regional deputy secretary Dan Mana told OFM News that the municipality owes millions of rands to third-party contributions.

This includes provident funds and medical aid among others. Mana said a few years back the municipality owed a contribution of about R5 million to R10 million. Mana revealed this whilst irate municipal workers were protesting inside the municipal premises of the Welkom Municipality on Wednesday (25/10) following the non-payment of salaries. 

The municipality is yet to comment. During a media briefing yesterday, the executive mayor of the municipality Thanduxolo Khalipa told journalists the municipality was upbeat about repaying huge debts to Eskom and Vaal Central Water Board. Matjhabeng owes Eskom R5 billion and Vaal Central Water Board even more.

In 2021, OFM News reported the troubled Trompsburg-based Kopanong Local Municipality took three months to pay workers, following a Free State High Court judgment that attached the municipality’s bank account after they failed to pay workers' pension contributions to the South African Municipal Workers Union’s (Samwu) pension fund since 2012 – this was said to have been around R26 million at the time.

In 2022 the Congress of the South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) lamented the troubled Free State municipalities that allegedly continue not paying over third-party contributions, including pension funds and medical aid schemes.

Cosatu’s National Deputy General Secretary, Solly Phetoe, without mentioning the names of these municipalities – lashed out at them for continuing to deduct monies from employees but failing to pay them over to the pension fund and medical aid. Phetoe said in some instances workers die or retire and these municipalities fail to pay out their benefits to workers or their families because monies were not paid to third parties.

OFM News