The Democratic Alliance (DA) in uMngeni Local Municipality calls on the UMgungundlovu District Municipality to take immediate action against staff who owe the Municipality over half a million rand in unpaid services. These findings were presented to Council on 1 September 2020, in the UMgungundlovu Municipality’s monthly legislated report which revealed that staff owed R515 671.22 in unpaid services as at 31 July 2020.
This is in contravention of the Municipal Systems Act which, states that as per the municipal staff’s Code of Conduct, “[a] staff member may not be in arrears for rates and service charges for a period longer than 3 months and a municipality may deduct any outstanding amount from a staff member’s salary after this period”. With such a clear instruction from legislation, the DA calls on the Municipality to ensure that the appropriate action is taken against these municipal officials as per the guidelines of the Code of Conduct. These officials cannot in any way be treated differently from ordinary residents as some residents would have been disconnected by now.
These findings also come at the back of the fact that municipal employees have enjoyed uninterrupted salary payments during the Covid-19 pandemic while thousands of uMgungundlovu residents have lost their incomes and have been struggling to pay for services. In addition to this, municipal employees have also received annual increases.
The report also revealed an amount of R224 240.30 owed by Councillors. This is an indictment on these Councillors. How can Councillors expect residents to obey the law when they themselves fail in paying services? The DA is dismayed by the fact that this report on Councillors’ outstanding payments will now be dropped from the Municipality’s monthly reports. When asked for the reason behind this decision, the municipal manager indicated that Councillors had suddenly paid up their outstanding debt.
We are not satisfied with this response as it smells of a cover-up. UMgungundlovu must come clean about Councillors who have outstanding debts.
The report also revealed that uMgungundlovu has no intent or plan to collect almost R1 billion in arrears. Money that is desperately needed to keep services going.
Residents and ratepayers have become accustomed to the government treating some as untouchable. The lack of fairness, accountability and transparency is a hallmark of the current government. The citizens of uMgungundlovu deserve an efficient, transparent and accountable administration where all are equal.
This once again illustrates the DA difference in government. And that where we govern, there is no smoke and mirrors, but transparency and service delivery. In June this year, the Auditor-General identified the DA-led Western Cape as the province leading the pack in terms of clean audit outcomes, with 27 out of 30 municipalities achieving clean or unqualified audits.
Where the DA governs we take the financial management of public funds seriously. We call on the uMgungundlovu Municipality to do the same by taking action against wrongdoers and put the citizens of the municipality before their own political interests.