The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality spent more than R61m on staff overtime in three months, with the safety and security department alone accounting for a R20m chunk.
Despite several municipal-owned buildings lying in ruin due to vandalism, safety and security had the highest overtime claims out of the 12 departments.
Contributing to the large amount was the fact that officials working on service delivery projects in crime hotspots required security escorts.
The costs come as the city is cracking down on its high overtime bill with the introduction of a threshold introduced in August.
The money was paid to 16,293 workers across all the city’s directorates between April and June.
Amounts paid to workers for overtime include:
- Budget and treasury: R2.6m;
- Chief operating officer: R507,000;
- Corporate services: R745,000;
- Economic development: R80,000;
- Electricity and energy: R15.4m;
- Human settlements: R243,700;
- Infrastructure and engineering: R13.6m;
- Municipal manager’s office: R53,200;
- Office of the executive mayor: R316,600;
- Public health: R4.3m;
- Recreational and cultural services: R2.6m; and
- Safety and security: R20.6m
A report meant to be tabled during a municipal public accounts committee (Mpac) meeting on Tuesday was deferred.
It shed light on what had contributed to the excessive costs of overtime before the threshold was implemented.
“Among those contributors were the overtime payments made to officials who are earning above the threshold determined by the minister of employment and labour Nomakhosazana Meth and the interim threshold utilised by the municipality (R408,000),” the report stated.
“The threshold has been revised to R261,000, with effect from April 1.”
The metro applies the threshold to grade 4 employees earning above R261,000, according to the Basic Conditions of Employment Act (BCEA).
In August, municipal workers were left reeling after their payslips reflected drastic cuts in overtime pay.
This followed a June council decision to cut back on overtime pay for those who earned more than the salary threshold.
The city spent R415m on overtime in the 2024/2025 financial year.
However, with the threshold on overtime, the metro is anticipating a reduction in its bill with only R339m budgeted for the current financial year.
Should the metro not adhere to the overtime policy, the city runs the risk of incurring a R300 penalty for each employee paid overtime earning above the threshold, working in excess of 40 hours of overtime per month and not observing the rest period of 12 hours between shifts.
“It should be noted that the overtime is pre-approved before it is worked except in emergency cases,” the report reads.
“Overtime claims for those earning above the threshold are calculated utilising the threshold and not their basic salaries.
“Overtime paid in the last three months of the financial year do not necessarily represent overtime worked in March, April and May 2025 as some employees are banking the overtime and submit claims as and when they need their monies.
“This practice negatively affects the annual financial statements’ information and this matter has also been noted by the audit committee.
“Should the officials earning above the threshold not be allowed to work overtime, service delivery will be negatively affected as some of the officials are holding critical positions.”
Speaking after the meeting, safety and security acting executive director Shadrack Sibiya defended his department’s overtime bill, saying the costs were high due to requests for security escorts by officials in service delivery departments.
“Every time officials go to do work — especially in the crime hotspot areas — they ask to be escorted because they would get robbed of their belongings and sometimes municipal property,” he said.
“Obviously I can’t send one security officer with teams; they need backup.
“So you can imagine, from the service delivery complaints we received across the various service delivery departments how many of my guys get to work overtime.
“Also, we are the biggest department and this also contributes to the high cost of overtime.”
Acting city manager Ted Pillay said the imposed threshold would definitely reduce spending for the city.
“However, at the same time, we can’t just ignore service delivery issues that occur after business hours, but now we are going to ensure that staff actually do the work when they are called to duty after hours,” Pillay said.
“We can’t have people supposedly working overtime but there’s no proof of this on the ground, so we will monitor it in line with the service delivery complaints attended to after hours.”
The Herald
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