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Limpopo Municipality workers down tools over non-payment

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Some workers at the cash-strapped Modimolle-Mookgopong Local Municipality in Limpopo have stopped working, demanding to be paid their salaries.

The workers were supposed to be paid on Friday, but the municipality sent SMSes informing them that they will only be paid this week.

South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) provincial spokesperson, Patric Aphane, says the municipality is treating some workers unfairly as others have been paid.

“The problem is that the municipality claims to be bankrupt and we are quite astonished about that. We have instructed our workers not to go to work because they can’t work and not to be paid. The problem is when they start to pay a faction of employees and not pay others – when should employees be paid or not be paid at all? We will be raising the issue with the MEC,” says Aphane.

Modimolle-Mookgopon Mayor Marlene Van Staden says the municipality is raising R1.8 to pay the remaining workers.

“At least more than half of them got paid and the other third we’re hopefully going to be able to pay them tomorrow…. The municipality didn’t have enough money in our bank account to pay all employees at the same time last night. I checked we collected more than a million rand already. I’m sure today or tomorrow will have enough money to pay all the rest of our staff,” says Van Staden.

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