The systems say they are employed by the municipality but the truth is, they have been sitting at home with barely anything to eat.
It’s been almost four years since the municipality laid off 184 workers, employed under a mayoral project in 2017. They were allegedly promised permanent employment.
Four years later and the memories of their terminated contracts still haunt them.
The former employees say they cannot claim from UIF or Sassa (SA Social Security Agency) because the records show they are still employed as permanent municipal workers. Most of them were breadwinners and demand to be reinstated. They claim corruption and nepotism have led to the misunderstanding.
“Others are obviously earning money using our names,” one of the former employees said. “I live with my mother and daughter. It pains me that I am still living at home and my mom has to support us both at my age,” she said.
The enraged workers said they were employed as EPWP (Expanded Public Works Programme) workers for only four months when they had, in fact, worked for two years. They say the municipality promised to appoint them permanently.
“We have suffered for years. We have been sent from pillar to post to get this issue sorted out. We have never had a satisfactory explanation,” another former employee added. “We will not take no for an answer.
We want our money.”
Others allege that their salaries were different every month. They also claim that they were interviewed for posts within the municipality, only to discover that they had been given to family members of those in higher positions in the municipal offices.
Records from the Department of Labour indicate that the former employees are still earning a salary. “Our identities have clearly been cloned,” another added.
The former workers feel used and abused by the municipality. The employees say that to date the only feedback they have received from the municipality was that the Department of Labour had requested the municipality to resubmit the UIF forms because the beneficiaries had not come to claim the benefit.
They have not heard anything else since.
The Herald asked the municipality for comment but none was forthcoming by the time of going to print.
