Daily News E-dition

ANC may retrench workers as coffers run dry

BONGANI HANS | Investigations Unit – investigations@inl.co.za

ANC Treasurer-general Paul Mashatile has revealed that the party is working on a strategy to retrench some of its workers to cut down on salaries that remain the biggest expense in the party’s operations.

Mashatile has for the first time explained in detail the financial challenges that have led to the party’s failure to pay salaries on time.

He blamed the new Political Party Funding Act as the cause of the party running out of funders.

Mashatile spoke to Independent Media’s investigation unit before the employees’ protest action scheduled for today.

He said the party had agreed that “right-sizing” the organisation was the only way to deal with the salary issue.

“Cutting down staff, having the right organisation, not a bloated one. So in the long run some people will be retrenched as we have no option now. The leadership has agreed that the current organisation and its size is no longer sustainable,” he said.

The party has 360 employees and is working on removing from its system those who are in their pensionable years. He said they began re-looking at the organisation in 2009.

A professional consulting firm had been appointed to help do head counts and would advise party leadership on which positions could be done without.

Mashatile said most party funders had been financially affected by the pandemic, while the ANC’S operational

costs “are extremely high”.

For the past two years, the party had been unable to pay salaries on time. The situation has mostly affected those working at the ANC’S Luthuli House headquarters in Joburg, and some in various provincial and regional offices.

Mashatile and party general manager Febe Potgieter were blamed by disgruntled

workers of allegedly failing to adequately manage the party’s funds.

In separate exclusive telephonic interviews with Independent Media’s investigation unit, both Mashatile and Potgieter dispelled allegations that they did not care about the well-being of the employees.

As a result of financial constraints,

the party had in the past few months moved pay day from the 25th to the last day of the month, but the workers have this month still not received their salaries.

Since the party’s main source of funding was donors, Mashatile said its bank accounts were running dry because some private companies were fearing the disclosure act – which came into effect on April 1 – as they did not want to be publicly seen to be ANC funders.

He said membership fees from millions of party members, levies from 258 MPS, including 27 ministers, President Cyril Ramaphosa and his deputy David Mabuza were not enough.

“Many people who want to donate money to political parties don’t necessarily want to be known to be doing that … we have experienced a sort of reluctance of many donors to come forward,” Mashatile said.

The party had informed workers that for the next three months, it would be working on sorting out the issue of salary payments.

Several employees who spoke to the investigations unit last week said their debit orders had been bouncing for months due to insufficient funds in their accounts.

They said they ran out of groceries, petrol and taxi fares to go to work and to support their dependants.

Mashatile said the party was increasing members’ fees.

“We are also looking at increasing levies for our public representatives whether they are ministers, MPS or premiers as they contribute levies to the ANC every month. Currently, 3% is deducted from the salaries of public representatives. We agreed that we would not increase by more than 2% because people are struggling. The team is looking at the figures,” he said.

He said the membership fees and levy increase would not be too high.

METRO

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2021-06-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-15T07:00:00.0000000Z

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