MINISTER of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Sicelo Shiceka has made an undertaking to review the huge gap between the highest and lowest paid municipal workers.

Announcing the formation of a ministerial task team to look into the wage disparities, Shiceka said the team would also investigate the recent service delivery protests in several municipalities.

Shiceka will head the task team.

He said the "task team would conduct a comparative assessment of the wage gap between the highest and lowest paid municipal employees".

The team is made up of the senior leadership of municipal workers' unions Samwu and Imatu, senior officials from national Treasury, the departments of cooperative governance and traditional affairs and of public service and administration.

The task team will assess the impact of the global economic meltdown on municipalities, investigate the origins of service delivery challenges, enhance the relationship between Salga (which represents municipalities) and organised labour.

He said there was need for a joint effort in dealing with these challenges as the government could not solve these issues on its own. Imatu's Danie Carstens and Samwu's Petrus Mashishi welcomed the initiative.