The Ministry insisted that any financial assistance was dependant on Municipalities co-operating with his Project Viability. This we viewed as unfair and tantamount to holding our underpaid, exploited members ransom because of mismanagement in the apartheid era. Their motive in this regard is clearly to accumulate funds to pay their allowances. Municipalities that currently have difficulties in paying the monthly wages of their workers are Ritchie, Delportshoop, Calvinia, Colesburg, Richmond, Port Nolloth and Noupoort. Some of these Local Authorities use their financial difficulties as a motivation to privatise services.
Most local authorities appear to be in serious financial debt.
Please let us know if there is a funding crisis in your municipality. We will do our best to get to the root of the problem. Initially this agreement was only implemented for office and administration workers. The result was a reduction of the working week to 40 hours for blue collar workers too. Subsequently, the Culture and Recreation Service Unit and all other service units, with the exception of Durban Electricity followed suit.