The Gauteng Department of Health has been criticised for its poor handling of a recent wage dispute with its community health workers.
This criticism came from the Democratic Alliance’s Jack Bloom, Gauteng Shadow MEC for Health and the party’s constituency head for Johannesburg East, who lambasted the department for their slow pace in paying the workers their monthly stipend.
Bloom explained that the workers based in various communities around Johannesburg, Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, had allegedly not received their monthly stipend of R2 500 for the past two months due to issues with the new payment system.
“This is despite the new [alleged] R87-million contract with the SmartPurse company to administer their payments, which some workers have signed a contract with [while] others refused,” he said.
Bloom alleged that the department had treated the workers badly for a long time despite the valuable work they did in their local communities.
The department’s spokesperson, Steve Mabona, however, refuted claims of poor handling of the dispute, explaining that the late payment of the workers’ stipends had been a concern for the department for a period of time, hence the introduction of the new payment system.
“We have been consistent and [have] encouraged workers to sign contracts with our service provider accordingly as it will be able to assist the department to biometrically register all workers in Gauteng, monitor their work, manage reporting and process payments,” he explained.
Mabona added that the department had interacted with the workers ahead of the introduction of the SmartPurse system and confirmed that, at this stage, about 5 000 employees had signed their contracts in areas such as Sedibeng and the West Rand, while in Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg only half the workers had signed.
Furthermore, more than 4 000 workers had been paid their stipends while the remainder were in the process of being validated before being paid.
Speaking of workers who allegedly refused to sign their contracts, Mabona stressed that the department would not be in a position to pay them as there was no contract with them.
“We have been receiving calls from all those interested in signing and we wish to encourage those workers to interact with the relevant offices for assistance,” he concluded.
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