Enoch Mgijima workers receiving double salaries

More than 80% of Enoch Mgijima local municipality employees are paid double salaries, with general workers, who are meant to earn R8,000, receiving R18,000 per month.

This is yet another scandal the National Cabinet Representative (NCR) has dug up at the municipality.

The Hawks also recently seized municipal manager Nokuthula Zondani and CFO Paul Mahlasela’s laptops, which the crime investigation unit and the NCR had been looking for.

The NCR had requested the laptops from the municipal manager and the CFO to conduct an investigative report after municipal officials misled it about the real reasons behind the municipality’s financial collapse.

The NCR’s Dr Monde Tom revealed this while addressing the Civic Ratepayers Association’s AGM in Komani on Thursday last week.

He was accompanied by two of his team members, Ismail Mamoojee, responsible for finance and engineering, and Deon Henning, dealing with infrastructure.

“I wanted to find out where the money to pay salaries came from when the municipality is under financial collapse,” Tom said.

“We investigated that and found that the majority of employees, more than 80%, get paid double salaries.

“We are asking how a general worker who earns R8,000 ends up receiving R 18,000. Something went wrong when the salaries were changed.”

Tom said the national government had informed him of many diagnostic reports about what the problem was at the municipality.

He said his team had gone through all the reports, which were from the national and provincial governments, and the local municipality.

His team had spoken face-to-face with the municipal officials, getting their input.

After completing the process, with the officials coming forward to give their accounts in July, the NCR produced a report which was presented nationally in August.

“In August, I produced a report and realised that the people I spoke to in the municipality did not tell the truth.”

He said he’d had to come up with another way of getting the correct information, and summoned 18 senior Enoch Mgijima officials who served in critical positions in the municipality.

“I am requesting for the municipality property devices, because every time I request information you [municipal officials] tell me the town hall burnt down and the information you would have given me is also burnt.

“At least your cellphones and laptops were not burnt.”

He said out of the 18 officials, 16 had handed over their laptops.

He said the Hawks had recently approached the NCR, indicating that the unit was also after the municipal manager and CFO’s laptops.

“I said they should use their own power and the deal was when they got hold of the devices they should bring them to me.

“They requested an affidavit stipulating the reason I wanted the laptops and why they had not been handed over to me, and I wrote down what I had told the officials.”

Tom said the Hawks had taken the affidavit to a magistrate, requesting a search-and-seizure warrant, and had been granted permission to seize the devices.

The Hawks then delivered the laptops to the NCR.

Hawks spokesperson Yolisa Mgolodela said investigators seized the laptops to form part of their probe into the R15m Lesseyton Stadium, which made national headlines.

Tom told members of the ratepayers’ association how he had been deployed to the municipality after President Cyril Ramaphosa was given a report about 147 municipalities which were in a dire financial state, with Enoch Mgijima in the top three. — The Rep