Council workers to confiscate council property over unpaid wages

Employees of the Municipality of Gwanda have agreed to lodge an urgent application with the courts to attach council moveable property over outstanding wages.

According to the Urban Councils Workers Union Gwanda Chairperson Mr Sipho Ndlovu the workers passed a resolution to sue council for the outstanding wages at a meeting on Friday after failing to reach an agreement on the outstanding wages with the employer on Wednesday. Council owes the workers outstanding wages of up to five months.

In April this year, the workers went on a two day industrial strike which ended with council signing an improbable agreement to settle the outstanding wages over a period of four months. According to Ndlovu, council has failed to live to any of the terms of the agreement leaving the workers with no option but to seek the intervention of the courts to recover their wages.

"We had a meeting with the council on Wednesday where council conceded that they have no means to pay us our outstanding wages. On Friday we met with the workers who agreed to seek an order to attach council property to recover the wages," said Ndlovu.

According to Ndlovu, council does not seem to be committed to settling the outstanding wages as council continues to incur "unnecessary expenses" instead of directing efforts at paying the workers. The workers claim that council has been busy employing more people while it is failing to pay meet the current wage bill. The workers also accuse council staff of continuously undertaking out of town trips claiming a lot of money in travel and subsistence claims.

"Council tells us to tighten our belts while they are busy relaxing theirs. They go out on trips claiming $100 per day on food only before other expenses yet they can't commit to paying us our wages," claimed Ndlovu.

"At the same time they are busy employing additional "unnecessary staff". We proposed to council to hold on employing more staff and make do with the compliment that is there now until the situation improves but they ignored that."

The workers' union leader said that council employees were now living as near paupers as they can no longer service their rentals and provisions.

"We went to council to find out how they think we are surviving as workers but they could not give us any answers. Council workers are now living as paupers as some of them have been evicted from their rented homes and children sent back from school for fees," he said.

Last week the Municipality of Gwanda was closed out of all the banks in the country due to its failure to meet garnish orders on debts owed. In an interview the Mayor of the town Councillor Knowledge Ndlovu said that his council was failing to service debts or provide services as it battles to keep its labour force paid. "The council has been garnished through all banks and we cannot bank with any institution in the country," Ndlovu said.

"We are failing to pay for all other services because every cent we get goes to salaries yet we are still behind in terms of paying our staff and this is compromising service delivery."

Gwanda owes $6 million to Zinwa, $188,000 to Zesa, $62,000 to TelOne, Zimra $524,000 and $96,000 to NSSA.

The town also owes $130,000 to the Local Authorities Pension Fund (LAPF), $21,000 to the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef), $28,000 to the Standard Development Levy, $91,000 in bank overdraft and $28,000 to its pensioners.

Sometime last year the Municipality also had Old Mutual attaching computers and other equipment over an un remitted employee deductions on life insurance policies. Some of the property that is at the risk of being attached from council to settle wages is the newly acquired refuse compactor truck, a fleet of emergency vehicles including the only fire tender in the town.