The eThekwini municipality in KwaZulu-Natal has been accused of subjecting employees under the presidential employment stimulus programme (PEP) to a slave wage after their working hours and conditions were altered without consultation.
The outcry comes after the municipality unilaterally informed employees that their working days would be cut from 16 to 11 days per month.
Allegations also suggest that the municipality reduced the employees’ daily rate from R200 to R183.31 per day.
This means that the employees who are employed as general workers will take home less than R1 500 per month after the Unemployment Insurance Fund and SA Revenue Service deductions, far less than the gazetted national minimum wage.
The slashed number of working days is contained in a memo dated June 10, which was signed by Afika Ndima, the manager of the programme.
In the memo, Ndima justified the cut by saying the municipality wanted to retain all the employees; hence, it opted to reduce the number of working hours.
“To try and retain all beneficiaries in the programme against a reduced budget, the programme is modelled on an 11-day month work cycle over a period of 10 months, with the first salary date being August 25, 2025, and the last salary date being May 25, 2026,” reads the memo.
Workers downgraded
The memo has raised concerns, with some employees anonymously telling Sunday World that some employees will be downgraded and not everyone will be working the 11 days.
“The team leaders and supervisors will be downgraded to become general workers under the programme.
“Also to be downgraded are administrators to become supervisors, and they will work for 22 days every month to earn more than the rest of us,” one employee said.
The spokesperson of the municipality, Gugu Sisilana, confirmed the decision to cut the working hours and said the move aimed to ensure that every employee remains on board.
“In the preceding financial year [2024/25], the project has had a budget of R107-million. The current financial year’s allocated budget is R74-million, representing a reduction of R33-million,” said Sisilana.
“Options considered included a reduction in the number of beneficiaries employed by 928 to ensure that the programme continued for 20 days, from August 2025 to June 2026.
“In the interest of retaining all those beneficiaries, we modelled the programme on an 11-day work week from August to April 2026.”
Pay disparities denied
She explained further: “This is still a tightrope to work, but we believed that the unemployment crisis is still the same, and we could not justify putting 928 people out of work to pay beneficiaries on 20 days.
“The balance between an effective increase in service delivery through the program and beneficiaries earning a livelihood is what we sought, and we believe we have achieved this.”
Sisilana denied that there are employees who are paid R200 per day while others get less than that.
“The claim that beneficiaries are paid different rates for the same category of work is incorrect, and I would request those that are paid at R200 to come forward with such proof.
“The salary processing platform has no R200 rate, and if it did, it would be flagged as irregular.”
