Members of Samwu can be seen protesting outside Tshwane House in the Pretoria CBD on 22 July 2020. Picture: Jacques Nelles
The City of Tshwane has announced that it has agreed to pay municipal workers a promised 6.25% salary increase following protests in the city this week.
“In the spirit of sound labour relations … the City has decided to honour the wage and salary increase collective agreement,” the City said on Thursday.
The protests began earlier this week when the workers broke into Tshwane House in Madiba Street and damaged the municipality’s head office. The police were deployed to deal with the ongoing protests as rubber bullets were fired.
In a statement, the City said revenue collection in the city had gone down to about 70% due to lockdown, which resulted in a R2.3-billion loss in liquidity.
It further said that although it was experiencing a poor liquidity status, it would implement the salary and wage agreement.
ALSO READ: Tshwane condemns Samwu workers’ ‘appalling behaviour’ during protest
Salary and wage agreement:
“Please note that employees will receive their normal salaries without the 6.25% increase on Friday, 24 July.”
The City urged the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) to agree to the 6.25% increase offer.
“Organised labour is requested to accept the above-mentioned implementation method and to assist the City in the management of possible negative reaction from the workforce.”
The metro added that it had approached court in order to interdict the protests which saw trucks being set on fire, damage to municipal buildings and trash being spilt in the streets.
“The City is troubled by the recent unprotected industrial action that took place which resulted in the damage of key infrastructure, property and City buildings commence with a process of identifying those responsible is far management has since approached the court in order to interdict this illegal property.”
READ MORE: WATCH: Trucks go up in flames as protests continue in Pretoria
The City’s administrator, Mpho Nawa, had argued this week that the metro’s finances were declining due to lockdown.
He said National Treasury had also raised this concern of finances with the Tshwane metro.
“It is public knowledge that over the passage of time, the city’s revenue has been declining and this problem was compounded by under-collection due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“These challenges were not only pervasive to the Tshwane metro, as all sectors of our economy are bleeding as a result of coronavirus pandemic.”
Here is a summary of the metro’s finances:
For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.
Download our app and read this and other great stories on the move. Available for Android and iOS.