Cash-strapped Emfuleni municipality is at it again, paying another employee millions of rands while the staff member is idling at home.
The Emfuleni municipality has spent more than R3-million paying a senior accountant who has never set his foot at work since 2019.
The expenditure was revealed by Mzi Khumalo, MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs, in his reply to written questions by the DA’s Kingsol Chabalala.
The Emfuleni municipality has been paying Petrus Phosisi an annual salary of R788 212, which ballooned to R3 136 848 over four years.
This while the municipality has been, for many years, failing to provide services for residents.
Khumalo said Emfuleni municipality manager April Ntuli stated that he was not aware Phosisi had been paid millions for doing nothing.
Chabalala said Ntuli told Khumalo that he only became aware of the scandal after the DA had asked the MEC to respond to its questions.
“This indicates that the municipal manager is failing to ensure that Emfuleni’s coffers are spent wisely for the benefit of its residents,” Chabalala said.
“Furthermore, this shows that there is no monitoring or skills audit of the employees.”
Chabalala said while Ntuli has instituted an audit of staff in order to identify ghost workers, the DA wants those implicated in paying salaries to themselves to be held accountable.
He added that the municipal manager, human resources, payroll, finance, and senior managers have a case to answer, saying this is happening under their watch.
“It has become a norm that Emfuleni pays employees for sitting at home, which amounts to a theft of funds from this financially distressed municipality,” said Chabalala.
According to Khumalo, Phosisi gets a salary of R47 751 including a car allowance of R15 000, as well as R600 cellphone allowance.
Asked why the matter was never reported to Ntuli, the MEC said the municipal manager learnt with shock that such was taking place in the municipality.
He added that Ntuli has ordered that the matter be investigated and a detailed report be compiled by the revenue department.
“The findings in this regard will lead to proper measures to redress such a misconduct,” Khumalo said.
“The accounting officer has called for an audit institution-wide of all the employees who are not coming to work.”
Sunday World reported in July that the municipality had been paying a senior engineering technician Silence Munwai an annual salary of R597 022 while idling at home.
In four years, Emfuleni had paid the technician a total of R2.4-million without setting his foot at work.
Emfuleni municipality spokesperson Makhosonke Sangweni said: “We are planning to do a verification of all employees and for managers to account.”
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