Hard working Community Development Workers stipend not enough to support their familes

Community Alerts/ Tokelo Mohlakoane/ Limpopo-Sekhukhune/ 09 December 2016

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On 05 December 2016 at mosses Mabotha hall, Apel is a village, Fetakgomo/ Greater Tubatse municipality Sekhukhune district in Limpopo. We were having a meeting with ward committees, ward counselors, coghsta, CDW (community development worker), office of the speakers and the mayor of Sekhukhune. The purpose of the meeting was inducting ward committees. The issue raised by the committees about the stipend that they get every month is not enough to support their families and on top of that they said “they are working very hard than counselors so they must be recognized by cleaning their hands with a warm water “Other thing ward committees said ” why the municipality say if you are a ward committee you are not allowed to be involve in any project around your villages while the stipend is not enough?

The coghsta said “they are going to take ward committee’s issues to the office so that they can discuss and see what they can do.”What i heard when I got there is that the member of coghsta and member from municipality they know very well about the issue, and they’ve already discussed about it, but the surprising part is that there’s no transparency to the activists because they don’t put truth on the table.

I manage to interview one of the ward committees Mr Phasha about the stipend he said “the issue is approved from national, the Mayor and others member but the problem is left to be approved by counselors. We just don’t know that is true or what. Anyone who has an idea about what we can do to help the activists, maybe changes will be around our villages?