A Buffalo City refuse collector who earns R6800 a month claimed R275000 in overtime for “a few days” work last February.
The amount was flagged in the auditor-general’s recent report, which raised questions about abuse of the metro’s overtime system – including hundreds of thousands paid to the mayoral bodyguards.
The report shows that Ndipiwe Owen Mtshengu, who works in the BCM solid waste department, was paid the money.
Apparently he was allowed to work the extra hours because of a refuse removal backlog.
But Mtshengu is fighting back, claiming that he was wrongly implicated and never received the money. He believes his name was used fraudulently by crooked BCM officials who siphoned off the money.
Yesterday Mtshengu said when the AG picked up the R275000 payment, he was “called to the human resources department and told to make plans for repayment”.
“But that never happened. I only know about R5000 (in overtime pay). It’s shocking to hear from you that this money now is R275000. I didn’t get that money.”
Mtshengu showed copies of his bank statements for the months of February and March last year, which did not reflect a R275000 deposit. The records show his monthly salary, which included overtime.
He admitted to earning between R4000 and R5000 extra a month from BCM for his overtime work.
“I am not the only one. We get this money, it’s what we call jikanayo. We work overtime to make money as the municipality is short of staff, not to defraud the system,” he said.
The overtime claims, including that of Mtshengu, were dubbed “emergency overtime”.
The AG reported that employees had already reached their 10 hours a week overtime limit.
“Now extra hours are treated as emergency overtime although it is not an emergency. Proper planning of overtime involving all staff in the section or directorate was not done and shift work was not considered.”
BCM mayoral spokesman Sibusiso Cindi said mayor Alfred Mtsi was aware that some staff members, including bodyguards, abused the overtime system.
Another amount flagged by the AG was the overtime claims of former BCM mayor Zukiswa Ncitha’s bodyguards, who claimed a total of R200000 in November of 2014.
According to the AG’s report, which has been seen by the Dispatch, bodyguards Patrick Ndlanga, Mzikayise Dyani, Zinhle Ngoma and Lawrence Anthony claimed between R36000 and R50000 on top of their monthly salaries.
But Cindi said: “Since your questions are seeking information from the time of the previous executive mayor (Zukiswa Ncitha), our office is unable at short notice to retrieve and do calculations on what happened to bodyguards’ overtime payments in February 2014.
“The nature of the work of politicians requires that most of the time the bodyguards work outside of normal working hours because of the constituency work politicians do.”
BCM spokesman Keith Ngesi said the AG’s input, which is part of the metro’s annual report, would be part of the report by BCM’s municipal public accounts committee (Mpac), to be tabled before the city council next week.
“Mpac is tasked to look at and analyse the report before making recommendations to council. Talking about it now will be preemptive.
“Also, we haven’t seen Mpac’s report. It will be embargoed until it is tabled before council,” said Ngesi.
— bonganif@dispatch.co.za
TRASHMAN’S R275 000 OVERTIME 'WINDFALL'
The amount was flagged in the auditor-general’s recent report, which raised questions about abuse of the metro’s overtime system – including hundreds of thousands paid to the mayoral bodyguards.
The report shows that Ndipiwe Owen Mtshengu, who works in the BCM solid waste department, was paid the money.
Apparently he was allowed to work the extra hours because of a refuse removal backlog.
But Mtshengu is fighting back, claiming that he was wrongly implicated and never received the money. He believes his name was used fraudulently by crooked BCM officials who siphoned off the money.
Yesterday Mtshengu said when the AG picked up the R275000 payment, he was “called to the human resources department and told to make plans for repayment”.
“But that never happened. I only know about R5000 (in overtime pay). It’s shocking to hear from you that this money now is R275000. I didn’t get that money.”
Mtshengu showed copies of his bank statements for the months of February and March last year, which did not reflect a R275000 deposit. The records show his monthly salary, which included overtime.
He admitted to earning between R4000 and R5000 extra a month from BCM for his overtime work.
“I am not the only one. We get this money, it’s what we call jikanayo. We work overtime to make money as the municipality is short of staff, not to defraud the system,” he said.
The overtime claims, including that of Mtshengu, were dubbed “emergency overtime”.
The AG reported that employees had already reached their 10 hours a week overtime limit.
“Now extra hours are treated as emergency overtime although it is not an emergency. Proper planning of overtime involving all staff in the section or directorate was not done and shift work was not considered.”
BCM mayoral spokesman Sibusiso Cindi said mayor Alfred Mtsi was aware that some staff members, including bodyguards, abused the overtime system.
Another amount flagged by the AG was the overtime claims of former BCM mayor Zukiswa Ncitha’s bodyguards, who claimed a total of R200000 in November of 2014.
According to the AG’s report, which has been seen by the Dispatch, bodyguards Patrick Ndlanga, Mzikayise Dyani, Zinhle Ngoma and Lawrence Anthony claimed between R36000 and R50000 on top of their monthly salaries.
But Cindi said: “Since your questions are seeking information from the time of the previous executive mayor (Zukiswa Ncitha), our office is unable at short notice to retrieve and do calculations on what happened to bodyguards’ overtime payments in February 2014.
“The nature of the work of politicians requires that most of the time the bodyguards work outside of normal working hours because of the constituency work politicians do.”
BCM spokesman Keith Ngesi said the AG’s input, which is part of the metro’s annual report, would be part of the report by BCM’s municipal public accounts committee (Mpac), to be tabled before the city council next week.
“Mpac is tasked to look at and analyse the report before making recommendations to council. Talking about it now will be preemptive.
“Also, we haven’t seen Mpac’s report. It will be embargoed until it is tabled before council,” said Ngesi.
— bonganif@dispatch.co.za
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