Ekurhuleni’s “ghost workers” demand jobs and compensation

Police kept protesting former municipal workers away from Mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza’s State of the City address in Germiston on Wednesday. Photos: Kimberly Mutandiro

About 200 former municipal workers, who are demanding jobs and compensation, marched from Golden Walk to the Ekurhuleni mayor’s office in Germiston on Wednesday. The protest was timed for Mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza’s State of the City address, but the marchers were kept at a distance by metro police.

The workers represent about 3,600 former Extended Public Works Programme (EPWP) workers employed to clean parks under the Lungile Mtshali project from 2013 to 2015.

They say they cannot access the R370 SRD grant and state employment opportunities because their names still appear as employees on the municipal database 11 years later.

“The municipal database shows they are still earning salaries as ghost workers,” said Princess Majola, executive member of the Workers and Socialist Party.

Midupi Patrick Selepe, 66 says he barely survives on an Old Age grant. He said according to the municipal database he is earning R17,000 a month.

After the EPWP contracts were terminated, some were hired by Hlaniki Investment Holdings to do the same jobs on short term contracts. Later, the workers were given skills training, such as sewing, and hoped to get jobs.

The workers say they were unfairly dismissed, not paid their dues, and did not get Unemployment Insurance Fund money. They claim the City had promised compensation and to absorb them as permanent employees.

Worker representative Zandile Dlamini said the matter was taken to the Bargaining Council and the Labour Court by the Simunye Workers Forum and Casual Workers Office in 2015.

In 2020, 197 applicants in the case were awarded between R6,000 and R24,000 each in compensation. Dlamini and the other workers never received compensation.

“They should just give us our jobs back,” said Dlamini.

A representative from the mayor’s office, Zinzile Nxesi, received and signed the memorandum. He said the municipality would organise a meeting within a week with officials from the South African Revenue Service, the Department of Labour, municipal officials, and protest leaders to clarify if workers still appear on the database.

He said all issues, including whether workers can be reinstated, will be discussed.

The march was part of three demonstrations organised by the South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) campaign against job losses. Marches also took place in Marikana and in communities surrounding Maleoskop Blueridge Platinum Mine.

Lily Baloyi said that when she got the Lungile Mtshali job she thought she would be made permanent after three months and have employment until she retired. She fought to get reinstated and participated in the 2018 protests. She has not been able to find another job or access the SRD grant because she is still reflected as employed on the municipal database. “The municipality should compensate me for all my years of struggle,” said Baloyi.

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