Johannesburg – The governing party in South Africa, the African National Congress (ANC) has sent out a letter to their staff members informing them that it is unable to pay out salaries owed to them from July, August and will not be able to pay out salaries for the month of September as well.
In the letter seen by Sunday World, addressed to their staff, it reads in part, “This is to indicate that we are not yet in a position to pay outstanding salaries for July and August 2021. Unfortunately, September 2021 salaries, due on the 25th of this month, are also delayed. We do regret the hardship and the uncertainty that this cause staff and their families, and this is deeply regrettable.”
In the letter, the party said that the ANC over the first fourteen months of the Covid-19 pandemic and challenging economic situation, has kept its commitment to staff to pay full salaries each month, albeit late and not to retrench.
“This is the first time that we are delayed with three months of payments. We are in a challenging position where we have to also raise resources for Local government elections, and budgets for elections have been reduced to an absolute minimum. We appreciate the commitment and dedication of ANC staff, who despite these difficulties, diligently serve their organisation. We will continue to communicate on this matter as information becomes available,” the letter further read.
During a media briefing last week, ANC spokesperson, Pule Mabe said the ANC had not received enough donor funding to pay employees their salaries.
He said employees protesting against the nonpayment of salaries must produce records of the work they do for the organisation.
The ANC’s head of elections Fikile Mbalula has also said that the ANC aims to spend about R50 million to campaign for this year’s municipal elections.
Mbalula on Wednesday said the ANC’s election budget was a moving target, but they were planning to spend not more than R50 million to contest the local government elections, scheduled for 1 November.
“In terms of our budget, it’s a moving target [and] we are not looking at spending more than R50 million in this campaign. It’s a very short [period of campaigning] and we can live without other things,” Mbalula said in an interview with 702.
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