Excessive spending to cover municipal workers’ overtime costs sparked frustrated questions from councillors during a recent Makana finance portfolio committee meeting.
Excessive spending to cover municipal workers’ overtime costs sparked frustrated questions from councillors during a recent Makana finance portfolio committee meeting.
Finance committee chairperson Piryawaden Ranchhod said the municipality had already overspent close to R4 million in the first half of the financial year, from 1 July to 31 December 2012. This was mostly due to overtime expenditure, he said.
The year’s total budget for salaries is R106 156 740 and the limit for the first half of the year was R53 077 536. The amount spent was R56 930 484.
The overtime budget for the year is R4 298 170 but this, and more, has already been used up.
R4 323 93 has already been spent in six months, meaning the municipality had to take funds from other budgets.
There was uncertainty at the meeting as to where exactly the funds came from, however.
Councillor Les Reynolds asked who had authorised this blatant disregard for the budget.
"People need to be accountable," he protested, "there needs to be disciplinary action".
Reynolds said on the Sunday before their meeting two municipal employees in a bakkie had come to his residence to hand him the meeting agenda at 7.30am, an example of the kind of pointless overtime workers were claiming for.
"It is not controlled. We need to resolve it once and for all," Ranchhod said.
