The Pietermaritzburg High Court has ordered the ANC-run Umkhanyakude district municipality in northern KwaZulu-Natal to cooperate with the administrator and allow the payment of the delayed July salaries for its depressed staff.
The court made this order after the South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) filed an urgent application to have the staff paid.
Salaries never processed
The staff was supposed to be paid on July 25, but that did not happen. This was because the municipal manager, SW Nxumalo, allegedly refused to submit the payroll to the new administrator, Bamba Ndwandwe, to certify it and release payments from ABSA bank.
This stemmed from a dispute the municipality was having with the provincial Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (COgTA) to place the municipality under administration. The municipality took the decision to court and challenge it. It argued that the decision was taken based on misleading information. It said the misleading information was provided by COgTA MEC, Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi, to the provincial cabinet.
Dispute with COgTA MEC
Buthelezi has rubbished the claims by the municipality as baseless.
In the Samwu matter, the court ordered Nxumalo to cooperate with Ndwandwe and get the employees paid as soon as possible.
“[The] first respondent (Umkhanyakude) through its municipal manager (Nxumalo) is ordered to provide [the] fourth respondent (Ndwandwe) with a schedule of salaries due for July 2025 by close of business on 1 August 2025.
“Thereafter, first respondent, through its municipal manager, and fourth respondent are ordered to pay as soon as reasonably possible but not later than 5 August 2025 the salaries that they determine to be due. Respondents are directed to perform all reasonable steps to ensure that all employees’ remuneration due for July 2025 is paid as soon as reasonably possible,” reads the order of the court.
Meanwhile, the court’s ruling on whether the decision to place the municipality under administration was rational or not was reserved. This after hours of oral arguments, meaning that the status quo remains until it has been set aside.
