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Overtime work in the Dawid Kruiper Municipality is causing a drop in service delivery as the municipality allows for abuse of the payment system – to the detriment of residents.

On Tuesday, municipal officials waited until the night to attend to a sewerage issue at the home of an elderly Rosedale resident. The incident resulted in a further sewerage spill on the property, creating a significant disturbance to the household at a time when the family, including a sick child, should have been sleeping.

It is not uncommon for municipal staff to attend to their daily duties after hours. This is often due to capacity constraints, including the fact that a large portion of the municipal fleet is waiting for procurement issues to be resolved, before repairs can proceed.

Many times, however, this has also become the choice of municipal staff, who are enjoying the perks of overtime payments too much.

Based on information received by the DA, it is concerning to note that the cumulative overtime, standby and shift payments of some workers, in some instances add up to more than their actual salaries. For example, the monthly salary of a certain security guard is just over R22 000 but the cumulative overtime payments total more than R25 000.

The DA has previously voiced our concern regarding overtime payments at the municipality. Overtime payments made between July 2020 to June 2021, totalled R18,089 million.

The amount seems to be further on the rise for the 2021/2022 financial year. This is in contradiction to the promises of the municipality that overtime would be reduced by the end of August.

While the DA appreciates the commitment by the Office of the Auditor-General to include the overtime issue in its audit, this is more of a long-term solution and will not immediately resolve the wastage of financial resources at the cost of service delivery.

The ANC-run municipality, which has allowed disproportionate overtime payments to become entrenched in the system, must go. It is time for the residents to experience living in a DA-run municipality that prioritises the wellbeing of residents, not the wellbeing of the pockets of connected cadres.

Issued by Dawid Kruiper Municipality, Jayson Esau, Cllr