The Democratic Alliance expressed its grave concern last week about the fact that permanent councillors have been appointed in the Makhado Municipality Council without any specific job descriptions.

"How can they earn big fat salaries without any specific job description?" the DA spokesperson asked.

Furthermore, the DA stated that Council cannot afford paying the mayor, Speaker, chief whip and two additional permanent councillors the type of salaries reported in last week’s front-page story of the Zoutpansberger. DA spokesperson Mr Brian du Plooy said that there are just not sufficient funds.

"It seemed that posts were created for some people with no job description. What are they accountable for? We have a major problem with the five councillors who have been appointed without any job description. In Council, the DA opposed the appointment of these councillors," du Plooy said.

The DA said that the job description request has been referred to the MEC but no specific job descriptions have been received to indicate what duties they need to adhere to.

"They sit in offices, without any specific job description, earning fat salaries. Or most of the time they are not even in their offices, for when you go looking for them, they are just nowhere to be found," Du Plooy said.

The fact that funds were insufficient to warrant large increases in councillors’ salaries was emphasized by the recent PriceWaterhouseCoopers report. The auditors’ report made it clear that Council should have secured funding before any increases were made in Councillors’ remuneration. In total, the increase in the allowances was R4.2 million.

SALGA warned municipal managers not to implement increases in allowance if the increases had not been budgeted for.

Makhado municipal manager Ms Faith Muthambi last week confirmed that the R4.2 million increase had not been in the budget. Muthambi said that the matter regarding the R4.2million had been referred to the adjustment budget.

In the meantime, the PWC report recommended that amounts paid to councillors in excess of the approved budget should be recovered from those councillors.