More than 200 HIV/Aids lay counsellors marched on the Gauteng health department offices in Johannesburg on Friday complaining that they had not been paid since April.
The community-based counsellors also said they were unhappy with the amount of the monthly R1 000 stipend they were supposed to get from the department.
Spokesperson for the group Lucky Mokone said from outside the Sauer Street offices that they would not go back to work until they were paid.
”They are exploiting us. If it means we will have to sleep, here we will,” he said.
He said the payments were supposed to be channelled through an NGO, Kitsonet.
He said some of the counsellors on the march were HIV positive and on antiretroviral treatment.
Department spokesperson Zanele Mngadi said the department would respond on Friday to a memorandum the counsellors presented to it last week.
The counsellors last week staged a sit-in at Germiston Hospital. — Sapa