Johnathan Paoli
THE Mopani district municipality has confirmed recent reports that some of its employees erroneously received double salaries for the month of December.
Municipal spokesperson Odas Ngobeni said on Friday that 51 councilors and 210 staff members from the municipality were erroneously paid double on 20 December.
Ngobeni said this was due to human error, which they were rectifying and that some honest officials had already reversed the payments back into the municipality’s account.
He said that the municipality communicated with all the affected councilors and employees, including their banks, for the money to be reversed and that everyone who received a double pay had an obligation to get the money reversed.
DA councilor Mahlatswa Lebeus Ramalepe said that the party was concerned over the erroneous double salary payments and condemned the municipality’s indifferent approach in handling the matter, insisting on urgent consequence management for all officials responsible for such gross negligence.
The DA wrote to the Municipal Manager, Tshepo Mogano, requesting a comprehensive cost recovery plan and urgent communication of banking details for the return of the duplicated payments to the council.
“We will closely monitor the process of retrieving the double pay and will ensure that consequence management is implemented to hold responsible officials accountable to protect the residents and ratepayers against ANC incompetence,” Ramalepe said.
Despite certain DA officials also receiving the double payment, Ramalepe said that his party officials led by example by initiating immediate repayment.
In the beginning of the month, municipality mayor Pule Shayi warned communities on blocking projects in their areas when there is an issue they are not happy with, following protest action over failure of service delivery.
In addition, earlier in the year, the district went to court against the provincial government after being placed under mandatory intervention for being plagued by unauthorised, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure as well as being unable to deliver water to communities.
The municipality currently owes bulk water supplier Lepelle Northern Water more than R200 million.
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