DURBAN - THE huge salary backpay owed to izinduna across the province has been reduced drastically, by more than half, from R1.5 billion to R630 million.
At a meeting of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts in the KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature yesterday, the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) revealed that following a thorough assessment it found that the backpay had been exaggerated.
The department said the figure was exaggerated based on the assumption that all the vacancies of izinduna were filled and that all had worked the same number of months.
The past reports had stated that there were more than 3 000 izinduna across the province.
The department however admitted that it still could not afford to pay this reduced amount and was steadfast in its resolve that the national government, which started the process to employ izinduna, should fund it.
MEC Sipho Hlomuka said his department had been engaging with the national government and they would wait to see if the money was available when the provincial MEC of Finance, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, delivered her budgets in the coming days.
He said if the backpay was not catered for in this budget, they intended to go back to the national government to ask for the funding.
Head of Cogta Thando Tubane said they had performed a verification process to confirm the financial implications of the R1.5bn liability that had been raised.
“Our calculations before were very generous and we have submitted this to the national committee that had been formed to deal with the issue, now we are confident the R1.5bn was an exaggerated figure on our part,” he said.
Committee member and DA provincial leader Francois Rodgers said the reduction in the izinduna backpay was a huge relief.
“The problem now is where we are going to find the R600m.”
Phakamani Dlamini of Ubumbano LweziNduna, an organisation that represents the interest of some of the izinduna, said they were not surprised by the new figure.
“We have always said that they did not owe the backpay to all the izinduna currently in the system and we have said the figure of R1.5bn was too high.”
Ubumbano LweziNduna has frosty relations with the department.
Dlamini said that before the proclamation there were not many izinduna and there were many vacancies. He said many people only started flooding the system as izinduna after the proclamation that came with increased pay.
Tubane also revealed that the department had discovered and disciplined staff members for an overpayment of izinduna salaries.
He said an investigation was being conducted into the matter and the department had taken steps to ensure that the overpayment was not repeated.
It was not immediately clear what led to the overpayment of izinduna but Tubane alluded to the delays in communication of information when an induna had been terminated or died as being part of the problem.
He said they had directed their district officials to inform the office of a death or the termination of an induna in a timely manner.