Samwu outrage at municipalities' failure to pay workers' salaries

The SA Municipal Workers' Union (Samwu) has condemned the alleged ongoing failure to pay workers' salaries in six municipalities in four provinces.

The delays are said to have been communicated by the employers to workers in Umzinyathi in KwaZulu-Natal, Thembelihle and Keis in the Northern Cape, Mamusa in the North West and Mafube and Kopanong in the Free State.

The union believes the crisis has escalated to “catastrophic levels”, characterising it as “economic violence”.

Union general secretary Dumisane Magagula said labour was outraged.

“The crisis stems from a fundamental betrayal of municipal workers. Rather than supporting the essential institutions that form the backbone of service delivery, National Treasury has systematically abandoned municipalities to financial ruin, effectively setting them up for failure while betraying workers and the communities they serve. The evidence of the institutional neglect is incontrovertible,” he said.

Blaming the Treasury's dereliction of duty in failing to provide adequate and sustainable funding to municipalities, Magagula said the source of their woes is the equitable share system.

“While it was ostensibly designed to ensure poorer municipalities can meet their constitutional obligations, it has become completely dysfunctional and characterised by chronic delays, chronic underfunding and systemic misallocation of resources.”

The union has also pointed fingers at austerity measures and unfunded measures as adding to the crisis, claiming this forces municipalities and workers to deliver constitutionally mandated services without providing the necessary financial resources.

Magagula slammed this as administrative negligence and a deliberate policy choice that has further moved municipalities into financial ruin.

“The human consequences are devastating. We have dedicated municipal workers who are overburdened and underpaid and are being forced to work for months without salaries while simultaneously witnessing the communities they serve endure ever-worsening service delivery failures.”

While some municipal workers' pockets have been left dry, the union said in some parts of the country employees are remunerated quarterly. In others, hefty deductions are said to have been made towards medical aid and pension fund contributions.

“The situation in Mamusa municipality, where workers have been denied salaries since January 2025, and Kopanong municipality, where employees are illegally paid only on a quarterly basis, in flagrant violation of their employment contracts, exemplifies the human cost of the systemic failure.

“The workers, who include water services technicians, waste management personnel and infrastructure maintenance teams, are expected to report for duty daily, maintaining critical services that keep communities functioning, all while facing impossible choices between feeding their children, paying their rent or settling their debts. This goes beyond unfairness. It represents a fundamental moral failure of governance.”

The general secretary said the crisis extends far beyond delayed salaries.

“Municipalities, including Renosterburg, Kheis, Thembelihle, Mohokare, Kopanong, Mahikeng, Mamusa, Maquassi Hills, Tswaing, Naledi, Ditsobotla, Nkomazi and Enoch Mgijima, have committed an unforgivable breach of trust by systematically deducting workers' contributions for medical aids, pension funds, funeral policies and union subscriptions, only to withhold the funds for months on end.”

Dubbing it “institutionalised theft”, the union conceded the blame did not lie with municipalities alone.

“While we acknowledge poor financial management and corruption at local government level must be addressed, we maintain the root cause lies in a fundamentally flawed funding model that systematically disadvantages poorer municipalities.

“National Treasury cannot continue pleading helplessness while municipalities collapse around it. Treasury possesses the constitutional authority and moral responsibility to ensure municipalities are properly funded and supported. Instead, it has chosen to implement punitive cost-cutting measures while ignoring the devastating consequences for workers and communities.”

Samwu's national leadership has called for immediate action to provide relief for their constituency, the first being emergency salary fund intervention.

“Treasury must immediately release emergency funds to all defaulting municipalities to ensure all outstanding salaries are paid in full, including compensation for the financial hardships caused by the delays.

“We also need a complete overhaul of the equitable share system. The funding formula must be redesigned to prioritise the needs of rural and under-resourced municipalities, with legally binding guarantees of timely disbursements to prevent future salary crises.”

Magagula said urgent intervention by labour and co-operative governance authorities is required to protect workers from being compelled to work without remuneration, saying municipalities violating employment contracts must face immediate legal action.

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