Democratic Alliance Slams Bankrupt Emfuleni Local Municipality for Spending R561 Million on Overtime

• The Democratic Alliance's Constituency head, Kingsol Chabalala, slammed the Emuleni Local Municipality for spending millions on overtime
• The Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Jacob Mamabolo, revealed that the municipality spent millions on overtime in five years
• The DA vowed to put pressure on Mamabolo to ensure that employees who get paid overtime without working are held accountable

Tebogo Mokwena, a dedicated Briefly News current affairs journalist, contributed coverage of international and local social issues like health, corruption, education, unemployment, labour, service delivery protests and immigration in South Africa during his seven years at Daily Sun and Vutivi Business News.

GAUTENG — The Democratic Alliance (DA) slammed the Emuleni Local Municipality for spending millions on overtime in five years. The party's constituency head, Kingsol Chabalala, said the DA would pressure Gauteng's Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs MEC to hold employees accountable.

How much did Emfuleni spend on overtime?

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Mamabolo, in a written reply to a question asked in Parliament, said the municipality spent over R91 million in the 2019/2020 financial year. It spent over R102 million in the 2020/2021 financial year. More than 124 million was spent in the 2022/23 financial year. Over R122 million was spent in the 2023/2024 financial year.

Chabalala raised concerns that millions were spent during COVID-19 even though employees did not report for duty. He was also concerned that resources were wasted when service providers were outsourced to do the same tasks. He said the residents of Emuleni were suffering due to a lack of service delivery. He added that the DA would ensure that those who claimed undue overtime must be held accountable.

Emuleni woes

The Emfuleni Municipality is plagued with mismanagement and maladministration. In 2022, Eskom was granted an order to attach the municipality's assets after it owed the SOE over R5 billion in unpaid electricity bills. Eskom was ordered to attach R1.8 billion worth of assets.

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An absent employee who was not on leave reportedly earned over R3 million since 2019 while working for Emuleni. The DA revealed the maladministration in 2023, and the municipality admitted that it was unaware.

Emfuleni on the list of municipalities COGTA aims to help

In a related article, Briefly News reported that the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs department said it would assist 41 municipalities under administration. Emfuleni was on the list of struggling municipalities.

After Eskom received a court order to attach its assets, the department stepped in and assisted the municipality in paying its workers' salaries. He said the government would help by paying municipalities what they owe Eskom.

Source: Briefly News