A cash-strapped Mpumalanga municipality may need pickaxes and shovels to recover about R18 million in salaries that were paid twice to its employees last month.
An error by officials in the Nkomazi Local Municipality’s finance department saw workers getting paid their salaries on the 15th instead of the 25th.
When the council decided not to pay the workers on the correct pay day, 10 days later, the workers shut down all water treatment plants and other municipal services.
The council bent over backwards and paid the bonanza to contain the service delivery chaos.
Now it wants to recover the money before the end of the 2019/20 financial year in June next year and has suggested deducting 20% from the employees’ salaries, but the workers are having none of it.
City Press understands that there might be another shutdown in municipal services if the deductions are implemented on Monday as workers are looking forward to a bountiful festive season from their
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