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Stats SA Census field workers in Limpopo protest over unpaid salaries

  • File image: Census employees on the field.
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  • SABC-News-Census-750x375-1
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Disgruntled Statistics South Africa (Stats SA) Census field workers in Limpopo have marched to the provincial head offices in Polokwane over unpaid salaries.

Workers blocked the entrance to the offices barring employees from entering or leaving.

They have vowed to stage a sit-in at the offices until they are paid.

“They promised to pay us on the 11th but they never paid me. I want to know why my money was paid in halves and not on the agreed amount. I signed the contract on the 3rd of February. They were supposed to pay us R8000, but they never paid me that money,” says one of the workers.

Stats SA provincial Manager, Nthambeleni Mukwevho says verification of documents from the census workers contributed to the delay in salary payments.

Mukwevho says they will resolve the matter by Thursday.

“There are a few that were not paid and that is due to various reasons, one of them due to bank accounts cant be verified. Some issues related to people who have changed their surnames, for example, we are working on payments for people that are outstanding. We are working around the clock together with these issues to be resolved. Payments are likely to be made this week on Thursday,” says Mukwevho.

 

Video: Stats SA urges South Africans to co-operate with Census 2022 field workers

Census field staff in Free State vow to boycott work

Last week, Census field staff in Botshabelo, in the Free State, vowed to boycott work until they get paid.

They say they haven’t been paid since they started working in February.

The workers were promised payment several times to no avail. They downed tools on Saturday and have handed over a memorandum of their grievances to management.

The workers have accused Census management of dishonesty and sending them from pillar to post.

They are adamant that they will only return to work once they get what is due to them.

One of the workers says, “We don’t know which is which because we no longer trust them. Because some of us have put our hearts and spirit into this project, yet the census management has been failing us.”

Another says, “When we ask about the payment , they say we should go and hustle like we used to. There’s no time for us to hustle because Census takes a lot of our time. What we do is we check when people are around, sometimes we even go back in the evening to check those we missed.”

“We want to see them pay people, keep their promise. We want them to pay each and every day because this mess is their mess,” a third worker says.

Census management has attributed the non-payment to a system glitch. It has however promised that workers will get paid by Friday.

Head of Stats SA Free State, Boniswa Jonas says, “With regards to field workers of Botshabelo and Thaba Nchu, we had some challenges. The challenge was that, for some reason the whole DCC unit was not paid. We explained to them way before the payment date but then seemingly they did not want to accept that we had some challenges. Then during our engagements, we told them that their payment is being processed as such they are going to get their payment as of 18th of March.”

Field workers in Dewetsdorp and Zastron areas have also not been paid.

Their contracts were extended to the 20th of March.

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