MUNICIPAL officials and councillors at the Mopani District Municipality in Limpopo thought they hit jackpot when they received double salary payments during December 2023, amounting to more than R4,5 million.
Now, most of them are in distress as they have to pay back the money in full before the end of the month.
The issue is that some of them have already spent some of the money, if not all.
An amount of R4 531 840 was paid as "duplicate payment" to councillors, municipal officials and EPWP beneficiaries during December 2023. From the amount, R1 917 398 was paid to EPWP beneficiaries which constitutes 42% of the overpayments made.
Councillors were paid a total of R665 840 while the remainder was paid to senior managers and other officials, including deputy managers.
Even though the municipality has recovered 15% of the money, the DA is concerned about the erroneous double salary payments.
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The municipality’s DA councillor, Mahlatswa Ramalepe, said they strongly condemn the municipality's indifferent approach in handling the matter and insists on urgent consequence management for all officials responsible for such gross negligence.
Ramalepe said they've written to the municipal manager, Tshepo Mogano, requesting a comprehensive cost recovery plan and urgent communication of banking details for the return of the duplicated payments to the council.
“We will closely monitor the process of retrieving the double pay and will ensure that consequence management is implemented to hold responsible officials accountable,” he said.
Municipal spokesman Odas Ngobeni said a special council meeting sat on Monday, 8 January where it was announced that R696 459 has been recovered on overpayments made.
“The report has been referred to the Financial Misconduct Board for further investigation. The investigation report shall be submitted to the municipal manager’s office within 21 days,” he said.
