Broke council's manager 'bullied' into paying December salaries from other projects

Politicians at the cash-strapped Amahlathi municipality last week bullied their administration officials into sourcing “any available funds” to pay December salaries to hundreds of employees, councillors and traditional leaders.

This is despite the council being warned by municipal manager Ivy Sikhulu-Nqwena that a decision to make the payments taken in a special council meeting on December 18, and endorsed in an executive committee meeting three days later, was illegal and in contravention of laws governing the local government sphere.

The 253 municipal employees, 30 councillors and six traditional leaders serving on the council were finally paid their December salaries on December 21, 12 days after salaries were due.

The salaries were meant to be paid by December 9, but no money was paid out, leaving  a total of 289 workers, councillors and traditional leaders in financial limbo ahead of the festive season.

This  placed Amahlathi’s political and administration bosses on a collision course with politicians, led by mayor Agnes Hobo.

Hobo demanded that Sikhulu-Nqwena do whatever she could to ensure that salaries were paid, even if it meant using “any available” funds.

This was despite Sikhulu-Nqwena having been stripped of her financial management duties when the ailing municipality was placed under administration by the Bhisho government earlier this year.

Such duties, based on the intervention’s terms of reference, were conferred to an administrator seconded by then Cogta MEC Fikile Xasa in February.

However the administrator, Sindisile Maclean, has since confirmed to the Dispatch that he had left the municipality after his nine-month term lapsed on December 4, leaving what Sikhulu-Nqwena, in a letter dated December 18 to Hobo, labelled as a “vacuum”.

Last week the Dispatch reported on a confidential council report, dated December 17 and tabled by Hobo in a council meeting, where she raised concerns about lack of funds in the municipality to pay salaries.  

In her report, Hobo said: “Currently there is no funding for salaries of December 2019. The municipality had requested an overdraft of R10m and utilised money from the insurance payout to pay salaries for the previous months.

“The equitable share tranche has been used to pay the overdraft. The cash at the bank currently is not enough to pay salaries.”

The council later resolved that Sikhulu-Nqwena should make sure that salaries were paid, even if it meant diverting funds from other projects.

Hobo followed up the report with a letter to her dated December 17, again instructing her to “use any available resources to pay salaries”.

A day later, Sikhulu-Nqwena wrote back to the mayor, telling her the decision was “unlawful” and did not fall under her scope of work, but that of the appointed administrator.

“An illegitimate council resolution was taken in the special council meeting, despite the advice by the municipal manager. From the expiry date of the contract of the administrator to date, the municipality is operating in a vacuum in respect of all the municipal functions that were under the terms of reference of the administrator.

“Council further mentioned that other functions that were assigned to the administrator must not be performed by the municipal manager as they are within the scope of section 139 (b) (5) of the constitution.

“I therefore bring to your attention that financial management falls under terms of reference of the intervention and/or administrator. A council decision to assign the payroll function to the municipal manager, which falls under section 65 of the MFMA, is in contravention with the terms of the intervention in which council believe the municipality is still operating under its ambit.

“The resolution is in contravention with section 139 (b) (5) of the constitution and local government prescripts regulating municipal administration. So the council decision in this particular matter is tantamount to a deliberate move to prevent the accounting officer from discharging her duties or is an interference.

“The municipal manager advised council on this matter and such advice has been ignored,” writes Sikhulu-Nqwena.

“Such council decision is unlawful, madam mayor, and I am unable to implement unlawful decisions taken by council and as such, should you want me to continue with implementing such decision, can you please communicate such instruction in writing, and in your instruction, please specify the money that must be used for payment of salaries.”

Sikhulu-Nqwena on Friday confirmed that salaries had been paid using money from “other municipal coffers” after the executive committee had met.

She however could not comment further on the matter, saying she was at church at the time of the call.

Numerous attempts to get comment from Hobo were unsuccessful on Friday and for most of last week as her phone went unanswered.

However, a number of sources within council claim that Sikhulu-Nqwena was “bullied” into making the late payments.

“As long as such powers had not been returned to her officially, what they wanted her to do is unlawful as only the administrator still possesses such powers to pay salaries. As things stand, we do not even know whether we are still under administration or not,” said another insider.

Cogta spokesperson Makhaya Komisa could not be reached for comment on Friday.