North West MEC for Community Safety and Transport Management, Wessels Morweng, has assured North West Transport Investment (NTI) employees that their salary delays challenges would be resolved in the next ten days. His comments come as the workers have been camping outside the provincial legislature building in Mahikeng since mid-December, demanding their salaries.
The workers have accused the entity of failing to pay them salaries and other benefits for the past five months, and they launched a protest to force government to urgently intervene in the matter. “Our interest as shareholder is to see the employees being paid.So our team is looking into the possibilities of making sure that, that is done and within ten days we would have made sure that there is solution to that challenge of salaries is achieved,” said Morweng, who was speaking during a media briefing in Mahikeng.
Morweng said the entity’s challenges throughout the years, have been compounded and exacerbated by the Business Rescue Practitioner (BRP) which is the Accounting Officer of NTI, who the MEC said must respond to non-payment of the salaries of the employees.The department has successfully removed the BRP after approaching the High Court in Pretoria, but he had indicated that he’ll apply for leave to appeal the matter. Morweng said it is for this reason that the department has taken a posture not to transfer any money to the BRP, “as previously money sent for the purpose of paying employees was prioritised for purposes unknown to the department.
”The MEC also dismissed reports that the Provincial Treasury has allocated R75 million to the Department of Community Safety and Transport Management for NTI. “As outlined in the official Treasury allocation letter, the actual amount is R65 million.It should also be noted that the Department has made an advance payment of over R18 600 000 to the entity in June 2024. This advance was provided to cover NTI employees’ salaries. This was facilitated through LabourNet as it was the only option that could be used with certainty that the salaries will be paid. Taking these factors into account, the correct available amount therefore is just above R46 379 000. This is because the R18 million referred to earlier is refundable to the Department,” explained Morweng.
In addition, the MEC said the department has not received a report from NTI on how the R18 million was spent, adding that the report must include a detailed expenditure breakdown, necessary for confirmation and compliance verification. The BRP has been accused of failing to produce a single report since it was appointed by the NTI to develop a turnaround strategy, or account to the shareholder, and has refused to appear before the Portfolio Committee, and continues to seek government financial intervention.
Morweng expressed shock that the BRP has appointed a service provider who is deducting 2% admin fee from employees, which he said is unlawful.
“From the payroll that was processed by the BRP service provider, a total of R223 000 was deducted from employees who were paid in March. This service provider which is preferred by the BRP is charging this exorbitant service fee and takes two weeks to process salaries of the employees whilst the LabourNet that was used before, to process salaries within a day,” Morweng remarked.
According to Morweng, some of the NTI employees have alleged that the BRP is selective when processing salaries, a move he said is meant to divide the workers. “It is regrettable that the BRP has been using desolate state of employees that he had not paid to come to Mafikeng to demonstrate. The busses that he is sending here should be operating and generating money for the entity. The BRP has authorised busses to ferry employees to Mahikeng who had been here since the middle of December. This means production at the entity was affected as both the employees and the busses were here,” said Morweng.
He appealed to the NTI employees to help resolve the crisis, and return to work as government is trying to come up with permanent solution.
