Gauteng govt blames lockdown for failing to settle salary allowances

The Gauteng government says the lockdown is one of the reasons for its failure to settle all salary allowances since March.

The province has promised to settle all outstanding salary allowances of employees this month.

MEC for finance Nobantu Nkomo-Ralehoko said the long backlog was due to the coronavirus lockdown restrictions, as well as rejected claims, but the outstanding allowances would be paid in the coming salary payment.

Claims

“These allowances have been outstanding from March and earlier. To date, the department has processed 2,321 of 2,944 allowances received from all departments, while 623 claims were rejected and sent back to departments for correction.

“For the Gauteng Department of Health alone, 1,441 allowances were processed out of 1,800, while 359 were rejected,” said Nkomo-Ralehoko.

She also received regular reports on the processing of her department’s mandates to tightly monitor the situation.

“We are doing quite well in terms of dealing with the backlog. We are, however, worried about the documents that are rejected and sent to departments for corrections. It wastes a lot of our time and is the reason the payments are late.

“With the easing of the lockdown measures under Level 4, the department is bolstering all the key areas of delivery to at least 60% capacity as it still needs to observe social distancing rules.

“It’s crucial that all salary related mandates be processed timeously, regardless of time constraints. The department has increased its capacity in critical areas of its business operations,” Nkomo-Ralehoko said.

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