WATCH: Stats SA ‘explains’ census worker salary payment delays

Disgruntled census field workers in Gauteng have threatened to withdraw their services after a lack of pay.

Workers have slammed their temporary jobs as dangerous, poorly managed and riddled with inaccurate data, reports Pretoria Rekord.

Statistics SA (Stats SA) has failed to pay salaries to numerous recruited residents since February.

On Thursday last week, a number of field workers protested outside the Stats SA offices in Pretoria to deliver a memorandum of demand to demand their salaries.

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Almost two months of no pay

A fieldworker representative, Moagi Thebe, said despite working under “very difficult conditions” and having targets to beat, they remain unpaid.

Thebe told the publication Stats SA committed to paying workers since 11 March, but that no salary notifications had been received from their banks.

To date, only a handful of fieldworkers have been paid.

“Fieldworkers were only protesting for their rightly earned salaries, despite allegations of colleagues being casualties to crimes such as sexual harassment and racial slurs, due to lack of security in their jobs and management,” Thebe said.

“We are suffering and it has almost been two months without pay. What should we eat, where should we sleep?”

Thebe said Stats SA had experienced technical issues, which was why they could not be paid.

However, Thebe also said Stats SA told some workers their ID numbers were either missing or inaccurate, despite all information being submitted before being employed.

“We are suffering and it has almost been two months without pay. What should we eat, where should we sleep?

“All the fieldworks that were collecting data need an income to survive, even if the funds were little and temporary.”

‘Country-wide challenges’

Acting Stats SA deputy director-general of corporate services, Bruce Jooste, acknowledged to Pretoria Rekord there had been challenges in salary payments of both fieldworkers and supervisors across the country.

“We have picked up country-wide that there were challenges in the system with regards to various stages of sign off in the contacts, appointment processes and not to mention issues with banking details.”

Jooste said some employees had also listed banking details in their spouses’ names, or submitted different ID numbers to those their banks have.

He said 13 000 salary payments were due to go out on Friday last week, as workers were being paid in batches. More payments were expected to continue on Monday.

“Everyone is on a list we are dealing with as received provincially.”

Jooste assured workers the matter would be resolved.

Field workers told IOL on Monday those who had received their salaries were not paid in full.

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Edited by Nica Richards.

This article first appeared on Caxton publication Pretoria Rekord, by Reitumetse Mahope. Read the original article here.