Ward members say muni haven’t paid their promised stipends

POLOKWANE – Ward committee members in the Mankweng cluster are up in arms as the Polokwane Municipality has not been paying their stipends in accordance with a contractual agreement they signed in February.

The municipality elected them to act as mediators unto the community, promising a fixed sum of money at the end of each month from March.

“Whenever we ask about our stipends, they give us the runaround. At the end of March, they said our bank accounts were mixed up. Sometime between April and May, they said our project portfolio officer also mixed up our documents again, and later said the municipality did not take our fingerprints,” Ward 28 committee member, Kgaugelo Magoro explains.

Magoro says the committee members suspect that some municipality leaders could be misusing money meant to pay them although they are prepared to fight until the contractual agreement is honoured. He says the municipality had asked that all 13 ward committee members have documents binding them to the community work ready by March 19 in order to receive their money. They had reportedly done so 10 days before the due date.

“Before March 9 we had already taken our documents entailing banking details and SARS numbers to the municipality. We even signed contracts showing that from that particular day, we are ward committee members. They even said by the end of March we would get our first pays.”

On August 19 the ward committee members gathered to discuss how best to approach the municipality to iron out the matter, after having pestered them until earlier this month without a fitting response.

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They then decided to send a letter to the municipality asking for clarity on when exactly they should expect their stipends. Magoro says the letter included a request to respond to rumours that the municipality is considering to re-elect ward committee members in the Mankweng cluster.

“The deadline to reply was meant for August 23, but the project portfolio officer responded that he had not received a letter. Right now, our second biggest question is why should there be a rerun to elect the committee because we are not at fault. We want them to also back-pay the ward committee members because they never stopped serving the people of Mankweng. They would use their own airtime, running around at night and risking their lives,” Magoro continued.

Polokwane Municipality spokesperson Thipa Selala says they are attending to ward committee grievances and will be reaching out to the Mankweng cluster to sort out the matter. “The issue on appointment of ward committees has not been approved by council as yet.

“The municipality will embark on a series of sessions with all ward committees from August 27 to October 14. Some of their challenges and queries will be addressed during those sessions.”