SAMWU Condemns Widespread Salary Delays in Municipalities and Demands Immediate Intervention and Comprehensive Funding Model Overhaul

March 25, 2025 adminPress

25 March 2025

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) expresses its profound outrage at the ongoing and systemic failure of municipalities to pay workers’ salaries, a crisis that has escalated to catastrophic levels and represents nothing short of economic violence against municipal workers. Today, municipal workers across the country will be receiving their salaries, however, workers at Umzinyathi (KwaZulu-Natal), Thembelihle (Northern Cape), Keis (Northern Cape), Mamusa (North West), Mafube (Free State), and Kopanong (Free State) will not be receiving their salaries as per the letters they have received from their employers.

This situation is not merely unfortunate, it is the direct consequence of National Treasury’s dereliction of duty in providing adequate, predictable, and sustainable funding to municipalities, particularly those serving rural and economically marginalised communities.

This crisis stems from a fundamental betrayal of municipal workers. Rather than supporting these essential institutions that form the backbone of service delivery, National Treasury has systematically abandoned municipalities to financial ruin, effectively setting them up for failure while simultaneously betraying both workers and the communities they serve. The evidence of this institutional neglect is incontrovertible.

The equitable share system, ostensibly designed to ensure poorer municipalities can meet their constitutional obligations, has become completely dysfunctional and characterised by chronic delays, chronic underfunding, and systemic misallocation of resources.

Compounding this crisis, National Treasury has ruthlessly imposed draconian austerity measures and unfunded mandates on municipalities, forcing them to deliver constitutionally mandated services without providing the necessary financial resources. This constitutes not mere administrative negligence, but rather a deliberate policy choice that has pushed countless municipalities into financial ruin. The human consequences are devastating: dedicated municipal workers, already overburdened and underpaid, are being forced to work for months without salaries while simultaneously witnessing the communities they serve endure ever-worsening service delivery failures.

The situation in Mamusa Local Municipality, where workers have been denied salaries since January 2025, and Kopanong Local Municipality, where employees are illegally paid only on a quarterly basis in flagrant violation of their employment contracts, exemplifies the unconscionable human cost of this systemic failure. These workers who include water services technicians, waste management personnel, and infrastructure maintenance teams are expected to report for duty daily, maintaining critical services that keep communities functioning, all while facing impossible choices between feeding their children, paying their rents, or settling their debts. This goes beyond unfairness, it represents a fundamental moral failure of governance.

The crisis extends far beyond delayed salaries. Municipalities including Renosterburg, Kheis, Thembelihle, Mohokare, Kopanong, Mahikeng, Mamusa, Maquassi Hills, Tswaing, Naledi, Ditsobotla, Nkomazi, and Enoch Mgijima have committed an unforgivable breach of trust by systematically deducting workers’ contributions for medical aids, pension funds, funeral policies, and union subscriptions, only to withhold these funds for months on end.

This constitutes nothing less than institutionalised theft, with devastating human consequences such as gravely ill workers are denied critical healthcare as their medical aid coverage lapses and grieving families facing the unbearable indignity of being unable to bury loved ones when funeral benefits are unpaid. Additionally, workers are loosing out on the interests that would have accrued if their pensions were paid over.

SAMWU categorically rejects the convenient narrative that seeks to blame municipalities exclusively for this crisis. While we acknowledge that poor financial management and corruption at local government level must be addressed, we maintain that the root cause lies in a fundamentally flawed funding model that systematically disadvantages poorer municipalities.

National Treasury cannot continue pleading helplessness while municipalities collapse around it. The Treasury possesses both the constitutional authority and moral responsibility to ensure municipalities are properly funded and supported. Instead, it has chosen to implement punitive cost-cutting measures while deliberately ignoring the devastating consequences for workers and communities alike.

SAMWU therefore demands the following immediate actions:

1. Emergency Salary Funding Intervention: National Treasury must immediately release emergency funds to all defaulting municipalities to ensure all outstanding salaries are paid in full, including compensation for the financial hardships caused by these delays.

2. Complete Overhaul of the Equitable Share System: The current funding formula must be completely redesigned to prioritise the needs of rural and under-resourced municipalities, with legally binding guarantees of timely disbursements to prevent future salary crises.

3. Immediate Moratorium on Unfunded Mandates: National Treasury must either fully fund all mandated services or immediately rescind these unfunded obligations. It is fundamentally unjust to demand services while withholding the necessary resources.

4. Comprehensive Municipal Debt Relief Programme: National Treasury must implement an urgent, structured debt relief programme for municipalities trapped in cycles of unsustainable debt and unfunded liabilities.

5. Urgent Intervention by Labour and Cooperative Governance Authorities: The Departments of Employment and Labour and Cooperative Governance must immediately intervene to enforce labour laws and ensure no worker is compelled to work without remuneration. Municipalities violating employment contracts must face immediate legal consequences.

As SAMWU, we are particularly appalled by the deafening silence from the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COGTA), the custodian of the country’s municipalities. Earlier this year, we presented the Minister of COGTA with incontrovertible evidence of the collapsing local government sector, including rampant unpaid salaries, crumbling infrastructure, and workers being treated as indentured labourers. We sounded the alarm. We demanded action, yet to date, we have witnessed nothing but a continued collapse of municipalities.

The time for empty rhetoric has passed. COGTA and National Treasury must act immediately to protect municipal workers and preserve service delivery. SAMWU will not stand idly by while municipal workers are reduced to conditions resembling modern-day slavery.

We demand immediate action!

Issued by the SAMWU Secretariat

Dumisane Magagula,
General Secretary
(076 580 4029)

Nkhetheni Muthavhi,
Deputy General Secretary
(082 526 5226)

Papikie Mohale,
National Media Officer
(076 795 8670)