SAMWU CALLS OUT MALUTI-A-PHOFUNG, A MUNICIPALITY AT WAR WITH ITS OWN WORKERS

18 February 2026

SAMWU CALLS OUT MALUTI-A-PHOFUNG, A MUNICIPALITY AT WAR WITH ITS OWN WORKERS

The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) Thabo Mofutsanyane Region has concluded a comprehensive listening campaign within the Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality deeply alarmed by a humanitarian, governance, and labour crisis unfolding in full view of the authorities. In late January, SAMWU leadership engaged with municipal workers across Phuthaditjhaba, Kestell, and Harrismith. What we encountered was collective trauma, exploitation, and abandonment by an employer that has utterly forsaken its moral and legal obligations.

Municipal workers in Maluti-a-Phofung have still not been paid their COVID-19 allowances, and third-party contributions is consistently delayed. This occurs despite these workers risking their lives to maintain basic services during the darkest days of the pandemic. These employees are expected to serve their communities while their own families face hunger, debt, and humiliation. For us, the actions of the employer amounts to a form of economic violence. SAMWU has consistently warned that the delayed third parties is a crime against the working class, yet in Maluti-a-Phofung, this deprivation has been normalised. Workers are treated as expendable and invisible while managers, consultants, and private interests thrive.

The Region is further outraged by the blatant disregard for occupational health and safety. Workers have lost their lives while on duty, falling victim to unsafe working conditions, a lack of essential tools, and reckless management. These are the direct result of institutional negligence and indifference. We must ask how many more workers must die before this municipality is held to account. We have further observed a municipality effectively captured by unaccountable individuals, where authority is abused and workers are terrorised. In Harrismith, a Unit Manager operates with unchecked power, while workers labour with broken equipment and no protective gear, only to be blamed for service delivery failures.

Even more disturbing is the rampant outsourcing that has hollowed out the municipality. Entire functions, including workers and equipment, are being handed over to private individuals under suspicious arrangements. For us, the municipality is systematically privatising municipal services, a decision that will not only open the door for further corruption but also make municipal services unaffordable to workers and residents.

The Region has identified the presence of a “construction mafia-style” operation embedded within Maluti-a-Phofung. Under the false banner of “voluntary service,” a private individual with no legally binding contract effectively runs parts of the municipality through a so-called gentleman’s agreement with senior management. This individual exerts more power than legitimate structures, openly harasses workers, and allegedly plants spies in SAMWU meetings. This is blatant intimidation, union-busting, and lawlessness.

SAMWU is not intimidated by smear campaigns, spying, or attacks on its leadership, including the targeted hostility towards the Provincial Chairperson. These desperate actions only confirm that powerful interests fear organised labour. Maluti-a-Phofung has become a textbook example of how municipalities collapse when corruption, outsourcing, and political cowardice flourish unchecked.

SAMWU Thabo Mofutsanyane Region now places it on the record that third parties must, from henceforth be paid over, immediately after deducted from workers’ salaries and the outsourcing that enriches a few while impoverishing the many must end. Furthermore, those responsible for worker deaths and the financial collapse must be held accountable, and the lawless presence of private actors masquerading as volunteers must be investigated and halted.

If this situation continues, SAMWU will escalate its response. We will not allow municipal workers to be sacrificed while corruption wears the mask of service delivery. This is no longer just a labour issue, it is a community crisis, a governance failure, and a moral indictment of those entrusted with public power.

Issued by SAMWU Thabo Mofutsanyane Region

Hopolang Lebusho
Regional Secretary
063 121 7211

Or

Thato Thebe
Deputy Regional Secretary
079 454 6403