POLOKWANE – This comes after the merger of the Aganang, Blouberg, Molemole and Polokwane Municipalities.
According to a source within the municipality who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of vindication, the employees who came from Aganang Municipality to Blouberg and Molemole Municipalities have kept their old positions.
The employees within the Polokwane Municipality, however, claim they are dissatisfied with the job hierarcy system.
“Even our salaries are affected and we are working in different positions than when we worked at Aganang Municipality. We handed over a memorandum with our grievances to the municipality, but we haven’t received any feedback. It is not fair how we are treated. According to memorandum of agreement on the disestablishment of Aganang Municipality and the transfer of staff, Transfer Section 3.2, the receiving municipality will absorb the transferred employees into positions on its organogram and in a case where such positions do not exist, newly created positions will be created for the purpose of this placement,” the employee said.
The employee said according to Relocation Costs Ssection 5.2: “The transferring municipality shall pay the transferred employee an all inclusive amount equal to one month’s salary of the transferred employee as at 31 July 2016 as the relocation costs”.
“We are unhappy about the way we are treated and we appeal to the municipality to take this matter into consideration before hell breaks loose.”
Polokwane Municipality Spokesperson, Matshidiso Mothapo, said: “First it must be noted that issues between the municipality and its employees are internal issues and will be treated as such. Employees are represented by their respective labour unions on various platforms that are functional in the municipality. Any employee of the municipality should use these platforms to raise their issues as it is not in the interest of the municipality to undermine these forums. However, just to give a perspective for the public to understand; the transfer process is based on a South Africa Local Government Association (Salga) policy on transfer of staff which refers to the following – placement of staff must not disrupt the effective and efficient delivery of service, be used as a punitive measure against employees, be used to promote or demote employees. The parties to the South African Bargaining Council being the Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union (Imatu), South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) and Salga that concluded a collective agreement on this process and employees were placed as per the principle enshrined in the policy. They are either promoted or demoted”.
