Staff Writer | Wed, 26 November 2025
The cash-strapped Bloemfontein-based Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (MMM) has failed to pay workers, triggering outrage among employees and renewed criticism of the embattled Free State metro’s leadership.
Several employees confirmed on Wednesday that salaries, allowances and overtime payments had not been processed, widening the crisis in a municipality already crippled by years of maladministration, corruption scandals and political instability.
The non-payment comes just days after the National Treasury issued a scathing letter to municipal manager(MM) Sello More, warning of its intention to invoke Section 216(2) of the Constitution, read together with Section 38 of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA). Treasury cited Mangaung’s persistent failure to curb unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure (UIFW).
If the sanction is applied, Treasury could withhold the metro’s December 2025 equitable share allocation a critical unconditional grant that funds essential services such as water supply, electricity, sanitation and waste collection.
Mangaung remains under national intervention due to its chronic service delivery failures and remains the only metropolitan municipality in South Africa operating with an unfunded budget. Intensifying factional battles in council have further pushed the metro into chaos.
Political backlash grows
Opposition parties in the metro have slammed the municipality for failing to pay its workers, with the Afrikan Alliance of Social Democrats (AASD) saying the crisis is directly linked to systemic governance failures.
AASD representative Zwelekhe Msabe questioned the timing of the salary delays, suggesting it coincides suspiciously with National Treasury’s latest warning.
“How convenient that after Treasury wrote to Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality warning it of its intention to invoke Section 216 of the Constitution, the City suddenly fails to pay salaries, allowances and overtime,” Msabe said.
He criticised the administration for allegedly failing to act on the Irregular Expenditure Register compiled by former official Mxolisi Budlela, claiming that the metro’s leadership chose not to refer the matter to the City’s Disciplinary Board or the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC).
Msabe further alleged that overpayments amounting to R2,191,898.28 to councillors in 2023 and 2024 should have been investigated and recovered by now, which “could have helped plug the current financial hole” that has left workers unpaid.
“What is sad today is that the same councillors who enjoyed salary overpayments since 2022 and the executives who enabled these irregularities were fully paid yesterday and slept with full stomachs, while workers went to bed hungry,” he said.
He added that the “ship is slowly sinking in the Mangaung ocean” while “the MK credentialist and his faction” believe they have delivered the best leadership the metro has seen.
“We live in Mangaung. The city stinks, it is dirty, and its infrastructure is collapsing, yet we remain blind to that truth,” Msabe said.
News Junction (Gold Standard)