The Progressive Civic Congress in Tshwane claims that the City of Tshwane has ghost workers in its payroll.
Ghost workers are people who get paid even when they don’t do any work at all and in some instances, they are deceased people whose identities are used to draw a salary from any given institution fraudulently.
“Deserving workers who struggle to get their salaries on any given month suffer because ghost workers are paid instead of them,” said PCC Region 6 Chairperson Jack Simelane in an interview with Tshwane Talks this week.
More than 100 City of Tshwane EPWP workers gathered at Sammy Marks Square to verify their details because they haven’t been paid for almost three months, and they spent Christmas without any salaries.
It is alleged that their salaries are paid to ghost workers who happen to be friends and relatives of City of Tshwane officials.
According to reports, these ghost workers scam in the City of Tshwane Municipality has been in existence since the era of former Mayor and now Minister of Electricity Kgosientsho Ramokgppa, and that it is a vicious cycle that all successive administrations in the Municipality have failed to stop.
Simelane said the ghost worker scam needs the intervention of the Public Protector as it would be futile to get the City of Tshwane to solve it.
“EPWP workers are targeted for non-payment in three or four alternate groups, because for a period of three months one group won’t receive their salaries, then after the said three months they suddenly get paid while another group stops receiving salaries, and after this very three months the scam will affect yet another new group until the end of the year,” explained Simelane.
He emphasised that all previous and present governments of the City of Tshwane Municipality know about this issue of ghost workers as it was reported widely in the media, suggesting in the process that the City of Tshwane Municipality has the largest number of ghost workers than all municipalities in South Africa.
“We are going to open a case against the City of Tshwane Municipality at the Public Protector’s office because it can’t be that black people must always suffer when they have to receive their salaries,” fumed Simelane.
“These cheated EPWP workers have responsibilities like all human beings as they have to pay rent where they stay, take their children to school, and buy clothes and food for themselves and their children,” he said.
He pointed out that white workers in the City of Tshwane are not faced with the non-payment of salaries issue but that this problem affects only black people working for the Municipality.
“We won’t politicise this matter but all that we will do as the PCC is to take the matter forward to the Public Protector so that the affected workers can start getting their salaries on time and every month, and stop going to Sammy Marks Square to verify their details because each time they do so they spend amounts of R50 per trip, which is something they can’t afford,” said Simelane.
EPWP workers who have been cheated of their salaries for three months spoke to Tshwane Talks on condition of remaining anonymous, this as they fear victimisation and ultimate dismissal from their jobs.
They complained that each and every week they are ordered to go to Sammy Marks to verify their details in the City’s electronic system, so that they can be paid, but come month-end they don’t get paid.
One of them said she had a bleak Christmas as she had to watch as other people enjoyed the festive season while she had no groceries in her house.
She said her kids had to wear old clothes on Christmas Day because her 3 months’ salary was still unpaid by the City of Tshwane Municipality.
She revealed that she started working in the EPWP in October last year and has up to now never received even a single cent as payment by the Municipality.
“We are told that our contracts are lost in the system and that they don’t have them on the electronic system, hence they can’t pay us,” she lamented.
Another worker told Tshwane Talks that she suspects foul play; that someone is benefiting at their expense as unpaid workers, yet they go to work every day, sign the attendance register and work hard for the money which is clearly being chowed by someone else.
“I’m tired, I want my money, I’ve been given a job, but I don’t get paid, so I am saying the new City of Tshwane administration must act fast as I can’t go on like this,” she said.
“I owe loan sharks a lot of money and I always have to hide when the loan sharks come to demand their money from me and I live in constant fear of my life,” she said.
In response to allegations that there are ghost workers who are benefiting at the expense of the poor EPWP workers, City of Tshwane Municipality Spokesperson Lindela Mashigo brushed aside these accusations, insisting that EPWP workers who have not been paid are the ones who missed the so-called “three times” verification process.
“Such workers were requested to report to Sammy Marks Square and provide their statements and evidence for having missed 3 x verification process and thereafter an investigation will be conducted to determine if they are eligible to receive payments,” he said.