The services and working of employees at the troubled Mutale Local Municipality came to a standstill on Thursday last week as workers resolved to picket as a way of forcing the management to implement the salary scale adjustment as agreed to by the South African Local Government Association (SALGA).

 They also demand the immediate removal of the municipal manager, Mr  Shumani Razwiedani, accusing him of dragging his feet in making the salary adjustment. The employees came to work in the morning as usual, but they downed tools and said they would not go to work unless their salaries were adjusted.

The chairperson of the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) at the municipality, Mr Colbert Nempumbuluni, said they were worried that the management of the municipality was not implementing the new salary adjustment . He added that, according to the new task scale from SALGA, which was adopted by municipalities countrywide in April 2011, municipalities  were required to apply the adjustment, which will result in the grading of posts.

“We decided to start picketing and we are still in the process of negotiating with the management on the finalizing of the issue, while the workers are still picketing."

Mutale's mayor, Sarah Rammbuda, who spent Monday and Tuesday locked in discussions with the representatives of SAMWU, said they were doing all they could to resolve the matter, so that workers could go back to work as normal. “Despite that fact that our municipality is rurally based and doesn’t have better assets to address service delivery, we are doing all we can to deliver better services to our people,” said Mayor Rammbuda.

It was reported that the Bale communities in Ward 11 near Ha-Manenzhe had also joined in the municipal picketing. According to them, they are being denied services by the Mutale Municipality and they have resolved to be part of Musina Municipality when  the new demarcation board starts implanting the proposed merger.

In the beginning of this year, Mutale Municipality was reported to have sent back about R30 million meant to be used for delivering services to the communities to the National Treasury.

At the time of our going to press, working and service delivery in Mutale were still at a halt as workers were still picketing during the day.