The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (SAMWU) has launched a blistering attack on National Treasury as the decision to withhold equitable share allocations pushes municipalities across the country into total chaos.
On Friday, 24 July 2026, the union condemned national government officials for freezing vital municipal funds, leaving thousands of workers without wages and missing their scheduled annual salary increases.
The financial crisis hits close to home in the Mopani District Municipality. Led by Executive Mayor Pule Shayi, who serves as the ANC Deputy Provincial Secretary and designated MEC for Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (COGHSTA), Mopani remains trapped in National Treasury’s freeze zone.
While the district municipality managed to scrape together enough cash to pay staff salaries for July, union representatives and internal sources warn that next month’s salary payments are in serious doubt.
In contrast, neighbouring Fetakgomo-Tubatse Local Municipality, led by Mayor Eddie Maila, successfully submitted its compliance documents and had its equitable share allocation unfrozen. This leaves Mopani as one of the few remaining local authorities in Limpopo facing severe financial strangulation by the national government.
National Treasury previously assured the public that withholding funds from non-compliant councils would not affect essential public service delivery.
However, SAMWU leaders say that promise has been exposed as completely false and detached from reality. Today was supposed to be the day municipal workers received their regular monthly wages alongside negotiated annual salary increases meant to help poor households cope with rising food, transport, and electricity costs. Instead, thousands of municipal employees across South Africa went home empty handed.
SAMWU emphasized that while Mopani temporarily shielded its workforce this month, the district is being driven directly toward a financial cliff. Without the immediate release of the withheld grant allocations, Mopani will soon be unable to cover its monthly payroll, maintain water supply infrastructure, or pay bulk water providers like Lepelle Northern Water.
The salary crisis is spreading rapidly across the nation. In the Free State, at least five local councils, including Maluti-a-Phofung, Mantsopa, Mafube, Mohokare, and Masilonyana, formally notified staff that they cannot pay July salaries. Some workers in those municipalities have not received wages since June. Similar salary delays and non-payment issues have struck municipalities in the Northern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal, and the North West.
The union stressed that the equitable share is not a gift or a discretionary favor from National Treasury. It is a constitutionally protected allocation designed to ensure local municipalities can perform basic duties and deliver clean water, sanitation, and electricity to poor communities. Depriving local councils of these financial resources starves the local economy and punishes innocent working-class families.
SAMWU strongly rejected Treasury’s claim that withholding funds is a form of necessary fiscal discipline. The union pointed out that ordinary workers did not pass unfunded budgets, did not authorize irregular spending, and did not break supply chain laws. Yet, general workers, refuse collectors, water technicians, and administrative staff are being forced to carry the burden for financial management failures committed by senior political office bearers and municipal managers.
The union called on the Minister of Finance and senior Treasury officials to search their consciences. SAMWU noted that national decision makers received their full salaries and pay adjustments on time, while taking choices from comfortable offices that deny basic wages to frontline workers who earned them.
To resolve the national deadlock, SAMWU demanded the immediate release of all withheld equitable share funds, the prompt payment of all outstanding June and July wages, and the immediate pay out of owed salary increases. The union also demanded that National Treasury stop collective punishment and instead use Section 139 constitutional interventions to target corrupt officials directly without destroying workers’ livelihoods.
With political transitions underway in Limpopo and Mayor Pule Shayi preparing to step into his new provincial cabinet role, Mopani residents and municipal staff are left waiting anxiously. Unless National Treasury unfreezes the district’s funds before August, Mopani faces total financial standstill and complete service delivery collapse.
For more background on the funding freeze, watch SABC News on Treasury withholding funds from Mopani District Municipality.
This news report provides direct context on the financial freeze in Mopani District Municipality and includes commentary from Mayor Pule Shayi regarding the Treasury’s decision.