Video by Sihle Mavuso
Durban - Despite being publicly haunted by the decision to summarily fire 233 workers while he was still the Mayor of Newcastle, Dr Ntuthuko Mahlaba insists that the drastic decision was legally sound and justified.
Mahlaba, who is now the provincial treasurer of the ANC and the MEC for Human settlements and Public Works in the provincial government, says even the courts concurred with them on the matter.
Mahlaba said this on Tuesday during his intensive engagement with the media in Durban.
It was during this engagement that the issue of the workers of Newcastle came up.
The matter first came to the fore on Friday last week when Cosatu-aligned workers refused to be addressed by Mahlaba, citing that he fired the workers and as such, he is anti-working class.
Mahlaba dismissed that snub as a non-issue, saying he was not there to address the workers who were marching for decent jobs, but to accept the memorandum and leave.
He said there is a worrying tendency by workers who call themselves "comrades" to think that they can break labour laws willy-nilly and face no consequences.
On the Newcastle issue, Mahlaba is unfazed, saying the recent decision by the municipality which is now run by the IFP after the ANC was ousted, is meant to score political points.
This was in reference to the fact that the municipality recently brought back 223 (minus 10) of the workers to start working.
“In fact, even the court was satisfied with the reasons. That was done (the reinstatement) because of politics, they wanted to impress them.
“But I can tell you they have not started working until today. We can say they have been reinstated but they have not started working even today,” Mahlaba said.
Mahlaba claimed that the municipality took the decision knowing that they have no money to pay the workers.
“I am from Newcastle, they have about R250 million to pay. Newcastle were owing about R280 million, during my time we reduced it… in a very short space of time… to about R160 million.
“Let’s see where they will get the money. I can even say it open here that they are using housing development funds to pay salaries.
“Where are they going to get the money to pay them? They have not started working,” he said.
Mahlaba said he has instructed his departmental officials to tell the municipality to stop using the housing funds to pay their salaries.
During the same media engagement, Mahlaba used it to lash out at the Mayor of Nongoma, Albert Mncwango, for inviting members of the public to an event to hand over houses.
Mahlaba said the mayor has no authority over houses since they are built by his department and they are the only ones with authority.
To prove that they have authority, he said all housing projects are funded by the department, not municipalities.
“The issue of handing over of houses … there is one executive authority of housing kwaZulu-Natal, that is me.
“In their poster, they even claimed that they build and do everything for themselves. Which budget, they don’t have that budget, they get it from us. That is why we go and introduce contractors,” he said.
Both the mayor of Newcastle and Nongoma did not comment on the allegations made by Mahlaba. Their comments will be added as soon as they are received.
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