Spokesperson, Solomzi Phama, confirms to OFM News that the provident fund of the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) obtained an order from the Free State High Court to have the municipality’s assets attached for auction. The auction was meant to take place this morning. The Samwu National Provident Fund (SNPF) did this to ensure that the municipality would settle outstanding pension fund contributions which Phama confirms runs into the millions. He says the municipality filed an urgent application yesterday, and they found out this morning that the High Court had ruled in their favour on the matter, interdicting the auction. Phama explains that the pension fund contributions have been outstanding since before the nine towns and local administrations of Bethulie, Edenburg, Fauresmith, Gariepdam, Jagersfontein, Phillipolis, Reddersburg, Springfontein and Trompsburg were amalgamated to form Kopanong. He says they are doing everything they can presently to sort out the problem and settle the debt. They even proposed a payment plan which Samwu rejected outright. OFM News’ attempts to contact Samwu’s provincial leadership have not been successful.

The move comes after the union led a march in Trompsburg earlier this year to the municipal offices alleging that the municipality had failed to pay the pension fund contributions for over a decade to the tune of R56 million, despite deducting the contributions from employees’ salaries. Kopanong has not confirmed the exact money owed, but Phama did explain that the total figure includes interest incurred.

The result of this is that there are former Kopanong employees who to date have not received their money from pension funds who blame the municipality. OFM News spoke to one of these former employees. The 65-year-old Klass Ruiters went on retirement in April 2018 and has since been denied access to his pension by the Free State Pension Fund. Ruiters, who worked for the municipality for over 30 years, says the pension fund informed him that Kopanong for five months failed to pay over its and his pension fund contributions, despite deducting money from his salary. The retired employee and his wife, Idah Zumani, reside in Edenburg and have on several occasions approached the municipality for assistance. Zumani says they have been told the municipality simply does not have the money but plans on sorting the matter out in due course. Zumani said Ruiters had become quite depressed because of the situation.

OFM News