A group of workers employed by the municipality tells OFM News that they can't go to work because of the non-payment situation. The irate workers have accused the municipal management of lacking simple, basic professionalism by failing to inform the workers about the non-payment of salaries in the last two months. They say the municipal management has previously committed to pay their salaries last Friday but to date, none of the promises have been fulfilled. Workers say the non-payment for nearly three months is having a serious toll on their lives, as well as the lives of their family members. Almost 450 workers are yet to be paid, nearly three months after the attachment of the municipal bank account, after it failed to pay third party contributions since 2012.

They say the situation is sad, especially when no one is being held accountable for this financial crisis.

OFM News previously reported that the Head of the Department of Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Mokete Duma, said that the Provincial Department of Treasury and Cogta had reached an agreement, which aimed to ensure that workers would receive their monies. 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 said 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.

But the move has since failed following the legal headache over the planned move.

“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," Duma added.

OFM News/Lucky Nkuyane and Kekeletso Mosebetsi