Durban City Hall is the headquarters of eThekwini Municipality. Picture: Zanele Zulu/African News Agency (ANA)
Durban — The DA in eThekwini has demanded answers from eThekwini Municipality manager Musa Mbhele over the sacking of more than 8 000 temporary workers under the Public Employment Programme (Pep).
In a notice to the workers on Friday, the City said efforts to extend the project beyond September had not been successful and this left it with no other option but to suspend the project, adding that it had requested departments to alert all beneficiaries under them not to report to work on Monday until further notice.
The City, however, assured workers that payroll would be processed from next week and days worked in the current cycle would be paid on the normal date of October 25.
“We know the financial distress this will cause to beneficiaries given the abrupt suspension, but the programme can no longer afford to continue without additional funding. We urge all beneficiaries to adhere to the suspension of the programme and await further communication,” read the letter.
The decision sparked outrage and the DA said on receiving information it had written to Mbhele for clarity.
The party caucus leader in the municipality, Thabani Mthethwa, said the party was shocked when it received calls from the workers informing it about the decision – despite the City receiving more funding for the programme, extending it to June 2024. Mthethwa queried why the City gave the workers short notice.
“Mbhele must answer whether the City or government misled people and political parties. If that was the case there must be consequences since the announcement created hope for the workers that they would be employed for another year,” Mthethwa said.
The DA suspected that the programme collapsed because of ghost employees. Mthethwa said Mbhele must explain what effort the City made to ensure that the programme was free of ghost employees.
Municipality spokesperson Gugu Sisilana said it was an unfortunate turn of events due to ongoing government-wide budgetary constraints which forced the City to terminate the programme.
“With the programme in its third and final year of implementation, the budget for the 2023/24 financial year was revised by national Treasury from the originally gazetted R263 million to R141m. This significantly affected the municipality’s ability to retain the majority of beneficiaries. This is indeed a very disappointing development that is beyond the municipality’s control,” said Sisilana.
The municipality stated that the Public Employment Programme was part of the Presidential Stimulus Package geared towards alleviating the pressure of high rates of unemployment confronting the country with a view to creating short-term employment opportunities.
These high numbers of the unemployed were exacerbated by the series of disasters faced by the municipality, which saw thousands of businesses go out of business, halting expansion plans. It commenced in 2021.
The programme was also part of the employment of thousands of youth as educators’ assistants in schools throughout the country. Their contracts also ended on Friday. Various economists had long warned that the government had run short of money to continue with such programmes, including the disbursement of the R350 social relief of distress grants.
It has been reported that the government is mulling over ending the grants or increasing VAT by 2% to sustain them.
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