The SA Local Government Association (Salga) is demanding that all councillors earn a salary of R1.3 million, regardless of the size of their municipality.
The Daily News reported that from Wednesday, full-time councillors will take home a salary of between R457,210 and R832,197, depending on the size of their municipality, while part time councillors will receive between R195,712 and R416,098 a year.
Salga, which represents 9,000 councillors nationally, wants councillors to earn the same as MPs, because it believes that their duties are similar. This would amount to a salary bill of R11.7 billion.
In some cases, councillors would see their wages more than double, and would come into effect following local government elections in 2016.
Earlier this month, the auditor general reported that only 17% of 268 municipalities and 57 related entities achieved clean audits in the 2013/2014 financial year,
Salga, meanwhile, is embroiled in a wage dispute with the South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu), who said it will be going for conciliation with Salga in the Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) early next month.
The trade union wants an 11% wage hike while Salga is offering a revised 5.9% increase. Samwu is also calling for an across the board housing allowance of R1,200.
Samwu said on Monday that the conciliation comes after three rounds of ‘fruitless’ negotiations as there was no commitment from Salga to ensure that the negotiations are concluded before the current collective agreement lapses.
“Salga has dragged its feet in the negotiation processes, this has led to a situation wherein the current agreement lapses on the 30th of June,” the union said.
It said Salga’s offers were “nothing but ridiculous”, noting it has just made a plea that their principals (councillors) get a minimum salary of R1.3 million “while municipal workers are entangled in the perpetual circle of poverty as a result of the slave wages they get”.
“Salga simply does not care, under the leadership of Xolile George, the association has been used by Mr George and his cronies to enrich themselves while legitimate demands of municipal workers are ignored,” Samwu said.
The union said that George was only interested about his R3.8 million annual salary, his R86,000 cellphone allowance and his R150,000 car allowances.
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