By Celani Sikhakhane
Former councillors of eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality in Durban have been linked to the collapse of the Public Employment programme.
Reports suggest the councillors were handed massive salaries which affected the programme.
Scrolla.Africa learned that the candidates who didn’t make it onto the council after the 2021 local government elections forced colleagues in their wards to employ them in the programme.
Initiated by President Cyril Ramaphosa, the programme was aimed at fighting the high unemployment rate.
“Instead of young people benefiting here in eThekwini, we saw several councillors being employed,” said a source.
He said this unscrupulous act led to the retrenchment of over 3,000 beneficiaries.
“This is why beneficiaries took to the streets of Durban. There was no money to sustain them in the programme,” said the source.
Blaming financial constraints, the ANC-run eThekwini Municipality fired them on 10 October this year but said it was looking at ways to revive the project.
eThekwini Spokesperson Gugu Sisilana denied that the programme collapsed due to the employment of former councillors.
“We can recall that about 30% of participants in this category had council work experience as per the advert,” said Sisilana.
“It is a gross misrepresentation of facts that the programme collapsed because a random decision was taken to employ former councillors who were given huge salaries, or that a certain category of individuals were employed.”
He said the facts are that the category for Area/Project Coordinators was always on the PEP Business Plan 2022/23/24.
“However, the municipality expanded the programme when we received more allocation of funds during the 2022/23 financial year,” said Sisilana.
Pictured above: The expelled Public Employment programme members protesting.
Image source: X
