A technical glitch is behind the non-payment of some City of Tshwane employees on Monday, according to mayoral spokesperson Sipho Stuurman, who said all employees should be paid by the end of the day.

Stuurman, spokesperson for Democratic Alliance (DA) mayor Randall Williams, was responding to a statement made by Tshwane African National Congress (ANC) chair Kgosi Maepa, who claimed the non-payment was due to the municipality being bankrupt.

In a post on his social media page, Maepa wrote: “Hundreds and thousands of Tshwane employees didn't receive their salaries today, on pay-day (26 September). City is bankrupt. DA coalition has officially collapsed the city.”

But Stuurman refuted the claim saying the glitch was on the part of Absa bank and not because of the financial crunch the city was facing and dealing with.

"Absa has since acknowledged the error [and is] working at resolving the technical error on their side. All salaries will be paid today as soon as Absa sorts out its technical problems,” said Stuurman.

He added that Maepa was trying to paint a picture of a failed coalition government.

“Kgosi Meapa is unfortunately misinformed of the situation and, as he often does, he rushed to social media without verifying or fact checking.

“His main interest is to paint a picture of a failing coalition government, which of course is not the case. This coalition government is working hard cleaning up the mess that was left by successive ANC administrations.”

Responding to Stuurman, Meapa said he was one of the unpaid employees and felt he had every right to complain about it on social media.

“Today is the 26 September 2022, the DA took office six years ago [in August 2016]. So how does the ANC take responsibility [for the ‘mess’] when the DA has been leading Tshwane for six years?

“Must we say it’s a glitch? Since the metro was formed in 2000 the city has never missed a payment.

“They must leave me alone and sort it out.”

In response to the non-payment, the ANC Tshwane caucus in a statement on Monday said it was “shocked” that the “minority coalition government led by the DA/Action SA/FF+/Cope/ACDP [was] faking the claim of running a responsive administration”.

It claimed that the municipality was in dire financial straits, giving the example that the municipal fleet had been parked due to the unavailability of diesel “as it had no monies to pay service providers for the supply of diesel".

“The city, since 2016 to date, has been plunged into a deep financial crisis by the administration of minority political parties who have no clue about running the affairs of the city.

“The municipality has also not paid its hardworking councillors, who are always on the ground trying to calm tensions in communities as a result of the incompetencies of this administration.”

It said the city workers were also demoralised because they did not have tools to complete the jobs they were meant to carry out.

“The caucus leadership condemns the actions of this administration in being insensitive towards those who are at the coalface of service delivery, both councillors and the employees who work under extreme pressure with no morale support,” the ANC added.

Meanwhile, the South African Municipal Workers Union in Gauteng said it would be monitoring the situation.