Pretoria News
Michael Phogola, one of many Census 2011 field workers who have yet to be paid by Stats SA. Photo: Etienne Creux
Hundreds of Census 2011 field workers have not been paid, causing an uproar as they are being referred from pillar to post by officials at the Statistics SA offices.
Some of the more than 1 000 field workers affected told the Pretoria News on Thursday that they had expected their salaries – R7 500 for supervisors and R5 000 for enumerators – to be paid into their bank accounts by November 10.
“We were sent SMSes informing us the money had been deposited into our accounts, but when we went to withdraw money there was nothing,” said a Sunnyside enumerator who asked to be identified only as Tshidi. When she went to the Statistics offices on Tuesday she was told her money had been deposited into the wrong account.
“It is not clear how this happened or if the wrong account was that of another enumerator,” Tshidi said. She was to have gone back to the offices on Thursday.
“I will not go because not only does it cost me money to do that, but it will be the same story of money not being available.”
Michael Phogola had also been told to go back on Thursday and when he did there was no one to tell him what was happening.
“We were turned away and told that no one could help us,” a visibly upset Phogola said.
On previous visits, he said, they had been sent from one office to another. At one stage they were sent to the finance office, where they were told that their money had been transferred to the relevant office.
“No one seems to have any idea of the responsible office, including the people we worked with during the census.”
These enumerators were among more than 15 000 who were engaged by Statistics SA for a 21-day process in October, during which they walked from door to door counting occupants. They wore yellow Census branded bibs and carried satchels, and approached heads of households at home with questionnaires that the enumerators were required to fill in. They collected the social and economic data on households that is to be fed into policy-making processes.
A sum of R700 million was budgeted to pay field workers.
Enumerators had been promised their pay on November 10, and supervisors were to receive their payment five days later.
Statistics SA had opened bank accounts, at Absa, for those who did not have one and some of those who have not been paid are holders of such accounts.
Stats SA was aware of the problems and there were three main reasons for them, said communications manager Trevor Oosterwyk.
“There are 1 000-odd field workers who have not been paid and this is because some repeatedly checked for the money before it was deposited, causing the accounts to get blocked, some gave us incorrect information which was rejected by the system, and some did not submit the completed forms on time.”
All payments would be made by the end of the week, Oosterwyk said.
ntando.makhubu@inl.co.za – Pretoria News
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Counting the days until they are paid