The staff of the Maluti-a-Phofung Water Board started 2025 on a sour note after their employer failed to pay their January salaries on time. 

The staff believed to be slightly over 100 were supposed to receive the salaries Thursday (January 23), but that did not happen.

The water board is owned by the troubled Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality in Phuthaditjhaba in the Free State province. In December last year the municipality took over the responsibility to pay staff salaries after a legal spat with the board of the entity. 

In a leaked internal memo dated 22 January 2025 and seen by the African Times, the municipal manager, Advocate Mathews Mofokeng blamed it on the senior officials of the water board.

“It has just come to my attention (at 15h30 by the CFO) that MaP Water Management did not submit relevant information for further processing and payment of MaP Water employees’ salaries. MaP Water Management, further did not send an official who has access to your payroll system to finalize payment of salaries as is normally the case,” reads the memo from Mofokeng.

Mofokeng blamed the management of the board for the devastating mess up. 

“It is against this background that salaries of MaP Water employees could not be processed because Maluti a Phofung Municipality does not have access to your payroll system. No co-operation is received from the Chief Executive Officer and this posture by MaP Water CEO is viewed as a desperate attempt to pit the Municipal Manager against workers and should be rejected in totality.”

He added that once all the required information has been submitted, the salaries would be paid.

“Salary payments shall however be effected once MaP Water makes your payment system available. The said salaries shall be cleared immediately. The inconvenience is regretted,” Mofokeng added in the memo.  

Mofokeng did not comment when the African Times asked him about the matter.