Workers from the Philippi Community Works Programme went on strike this week over claims of fraud. Photo by Nombulelo Damba-Hendrik.
29 July 2015
About 100 workers from the Community Work Programme (CWP) in Philippi went on strike on Monday, accusing their boss of fraud and nepotism.
The CWP is a programme managed by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, aimed at providing a “job safety net” for unemployed people of working age.
The Philippi CWP site is run from Vuyiseka High School.
The strikers, who work as school cleaners and as caregivers, complained that the manager of the Philippi site was hiring “ghost” workers and supervisors and taking a share of their wages. They said one of the supervisors was working with him.
The workers work eight days a month for R560.
They said the manager took R250 a month from each of the ghost workers. He also took a percentage of the wages earned by supervisors and coordinators, who earned R2,000 a month, they said.
The manager denied the allegations, blaming a former colleague who no longer works there.
Monday’s protest was joined by community members from Philippi Samora Machel informal settlement, some of whom said they had been told to pay R20 to R25 to join the Philippi Development Forum (PDF) in order to be hired on the CWP.
A woman who asked not to be named told GroundUp she had been on a waiting list since 2013. She said she had paid the R25 and had been in and out of the Vuyiseka office since then.
“I have done all the things requested from me in order for me to get this job, but they’re refusing to let me into the programme. At first we were told that we must campaign for the ANC in the national election, then we would be hired.
“Next we were told to join the PDF for R25 so that we could be put on a database, but that never helped,” she said.
The unemployed mother of two said she had paid the R25 from the child support grant.
“I was happy when I was given a form to fill in, I thought I was going to be hired. But now when I come here the CWP administrator tells me that there is no job for me here,” said the woman.
A former administrator told GroundUp she had collected the R20 from people who wished to be hired. She claims she didn’t receive any of the money for herself, but says, “It saddens me because I knew deep down that what I was forced to do was not right.”
“Sometimes there were people coming to the office asking for a job and I would send them back home if they did not have the money. Some I could see really wanted the job and they did not have the money, but there was nothing I could do about it,” she said.
She said on the register she had seen the names of “supervisors” who “never showed up at work, not a single day”, but who were paid every month.
One of the strikers, Luvuyo Mamba, said the reason for the strike was for workers to voice their grievances. “We are doing a job for the people who are not even here, but they get paid at the end of the month,” he said.
GroundUp spoke to both the supervisor and manager of the site. The supervisor at first refused to explain how the participants in the programme were selected. He then said that each municipal ward sent candidates. Asked to explain the presence of “ghost” workers, the supervisor said that sometimes the names of people who got full time jobs stayed on the system though they were no longer supposed to be on the programme. He did not explain why people who didn’t sign the register got paid.
The manager said he was being punished for closing the doors of the CWP offices where his former colleague used to sleep with women. “These are offices, not a bedroom,” he said. He accused Mamba of conspiring against him. Mamba owns a funeral parlour in Philippi, and the manager questioned why someone with a funeral parlour would qualify for the CWP.
Ward 88 councillor Patrick Pietersen said he was not aware of the allegations. “I would appreciate if people with those allegations can come forward to report them,” he said.