Buffalo City Metro traditional leaders are now the highest paid in the province, but the move has irked those in other municipalities who feel they are getting the short end of the stick.
Nineteen BCM traditional leaders each received a R3,000 increase on their monthly stipends after council approved the move just more than a week ago. After years of R5,000 a month for expenses as BCM council members, they were awarded the increase, which is backdated to March 1.
But those in other Eastern Cape municipalities have cried foul, saying the step only highlights inequalities in the treatment of traditional leaders in the province.
The monthly stipends are over and above the salaries traditional leaders receive from the department of co-operative governance & traditional affairs (Cogta).
Chief Gcinilifu Mdutshane from OR Tambo district municipality said: “There is a lot of uncertainty about the stipend issue. There is no equal treatment, which is why there were calls that stipend issue be gazetted so everyone can be treated equally.”
While traditional leaders from BCM will now receive R8,000 a month, in OR Tambo district municipality and King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality it is R5,000.
Mnquma municipality gives its 12 chiefs R3,000 each and Raymond Mhlaba its nine traditional leaders R3,500.
Amathole district municipality pays out R1,020 per sitting to each of its eight traditional leaders.
In Nelson Mandela Bay there are no traditional leaders in council, spokesperson Mthubanzi Mniki told the Daily Dispatch on Friday.
Provincial Cogta spokesperson Mamkeli Ngam said senior traditional leaders were paid salaries of R349,818 a year, which is roughly R30,000 per month. Headmen received R110,349 a year, or about R9,000 a month.
Chieftainess Nompumelelo Ndlazi, who works in the ADM council, said: “We have tried to complain to the speaker and question why are we not paid stipends instead of this sitting allowance.
“It’s not fair because the traditional leaders who served in the last term were given a choice between the stipend and sitting allowance and they chose the R1,020 allowance. But we were not given that choice. They just continued to pay us the sitting allowance.
“ADM is a district municipality – they should at least pay us R4,500.”
She said they were not furnished with laptops.
“We don’t have phones or data to open the council agendas they send in digital form. We are definitely not treated the same as traditional leaders in other councils.
“People with cars get to claim for travelling allowances but if you don’t have a car, you only get R300 for travelling.
“We want to know how they reached this amount because it’s not fair.”
Ndlazi also works for the Fort Beaufort-based Raymond Mhlaba local municipality.
In OR Tambo, traditional leaders have cellphones loaded with R1,700 airtime monthly, as well as laptops. They are also covered with R75,000 in life insurance.
BCM has a funeral cover of R50,000 for the traditional leaders.
Traditional leaders’ first spouses are covered to the tune of R35,000 in the event of death.
KSD council speaker Nontyatyambo Gcingca said the municipality’s 14 traditional leaders were covered by a R20,000 funeral policy. However, spouses were not covered.
“They also have tools of their trade like laptops and phones,” Gcingca added.
BCM traditional leaders’ chief whip Stanley Phakamile-Makinana said traditional leaders did “everything that is done by councillors except voting”.
He defended the incomes received by traditional leaders.
“The R8,000 is just an allowance,” he said.
“When people work, they should get paid for the work no matter what.”..