Tshwane metro has recalled the salaries of 451 employees who are believed to have signed the register for work but did not work in August.

Mayor Cilliers Brink said that 319 of these salaries have been successfully recalled while an investigation into the remaining 132 was ongoing.

“Salary recalls were implemented in line with the list submitted by line managers reporting that attendance registers were signed by employees, but no services were rendered. A memo was circulated, clarifying the procedure which should be followed, if employees did not receive a salary for August 2023 as a result of the unprotected and illegal strike,” said Brink said at a media briefing on Wednesday.

“A list of 451 salaries recalls was submitted to the bank of which to date, 319 salaries were recalled successfully, and the remaining 132 salaries will be processed with September 2023 payroll.”

The municipality was giving update on late salary payments and the illegal strike by members of the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) over salary increases which has crippled service delivery.

Brink said the municipality could not afford the salary increases because the city’s budget cut by R3bn.

“We are underfunded because we had previously paid increase outside of collective bargain, we also experienced the negative impact of lockdown and now we are negatively impacted by loadshedding. So we cannot afford to pay a salary increase,” he said.

Brink has labelled the strike a criminal campaign to bring the city to its knees and has called on the minister of police Bheki Cele to put an end to it.

He said criminal cases have been reported with the police and that the metro  had to beef up security at some sites due to violence.

“This is the capital city and if this continues like this, the sabotage on municipal infrastructure will lead to national keypoints being attacked also,” Brink added.

"Samwu’s unprotected strike has turned into a criminal assault on the democratically-elected government of the City and Tshwane residents. What started as a wage dispute has turned into a campaign of criminality. An assault on the democratically elected municipal council in Tshwane by a small group of agitators who claim to act on behalf of city employees.

“This group cannot care less about the courts, the bargaining council or the collective agreement. They use violence, criminality and terror as bargaining chips. Whether or not Samwu still has control of the situation, they must be held accountable.”

Brink said despite a court interdict, the union continued with the strike and this led to the dismissal of 122 people.

“The city will return to the labour court on September 13 2023 to have the interdict made a final order of the court. The city is contemplating bringing contempt proceedings against Samwu and identified employees who are in blatant disregard of the interdict.”

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