ActionSA has slammed eThekwini Metro after an explosive report revealed how the City has paid out billions in overtime claims.
ActionSA KwaZulu-Natal provincial chairperson, Zwakele Mncwango, said the City’s leadership “never missed an opportunity to demonstrate why it has become a matter of urgency to remove them”.
According to News24, over the past five years, the City has forked out R3.6 billion in overtime payments.
The report further claims that some senior officials were paid overtime despite not qualifying for overtime pay, thus contravening labour law.
The City reportedly paid out R576 million in overtime to its metro police department, including payments to the tune of R1.2m in overtime to an employee; R16m to 16 scholar patrol officers; R43.1m to constables; and R100m to 956 inspectors.
According to News24, the issue of overtime was cited in February, 2019 by then city manager Sipho Nzuza. In his report, Nzuza said the level of overtime was an area of concern and stated that overtime forms must be signed before and after overtime hours are worked.
Speaking to News24, the City’s Msawakhe Mayisela said they were aware of the matter. He added that those who submitted fraudulent claims have been dealt with and in some cases, dismissed.
Mncwango said it was undeniable that eThekwini Metro has been “a state of disaster for numerous years”, with issues varying from poor leadership skills, run-down infrastructure, lack of service delivery and corruption.
“Shockingly, the overtime cost for clusters within the municipality recorded in the month of August, 2022 paint a grim picture of some clusters using more than 50% of their overtime budgets, with the trading service cluster having used 58.84%; while economic development and planning used 72%. The governance and international relations cluster used a staggering 101.92%, which amounted to the municipality using R217 214 670.98 of its R521 822 830 of its overtime budget,” he said.
Mncwango said its the residents of the city are subjected to substandard service delivery, while the metro is being used as a “quick money-making scheme”.
Last year, The Mercury reported that the human settlements and infrastructure services committee approved an additional R67m to fund overtime pay in the water and sanitation unit to restore order after workers downed tools, and protested against cuts to overtime pay.
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