Empowering women forms part of the Ekurhuleni city manager’s passions in life. This has seen Dr Imogen Mashazi become the first woman to be appointed the city’s municipal manager, and she has made it her mission to tackle gender imbalance within the metro. In an interview with the Advertiser, Mashazi indicated she is a strong advocate of laws and programmes that promote women’s emancipation, in the public sector in particular.
She shared her long road to transforming the city through a programmatic reform process into a better metro that is free of gender bias in their areas of employment on issues such as hiring and promotion.
The Soweto-born and bred Mashazi has been with the metro since its inception two decades ago. She started as a nursing sister in Soweto before moving to Ekurhuleni metro, where she worked as an operational staff member and then headed up the metro’s Health and Social Development Department.
She then moved up the ladder to become the second female COO before being appointed the first municipal manager in 2016, taking over from Khaya Ngema.
Given the slow progress toward gender equality in the workplace, including government institutions, Mashazi undertook remedial action to change the then status quo.
She has been focusing her efforts on ways to accelerate progress for women within the metro since her early days in the health department.
“As women, we were sidelined. I’m the first female city manager in this metro, so you can clearly see that females were never taken seriously. The highest we could go is the HOD position,” she said.
Women Emancipation Project
Mashazi discovered that senior positions in some departments were still dominantly occupied by men, so a few months after becoming the city manager she started the Women Emancipation Project. The project is designed to help women within the metro prosper academically and career-wise.
“After years of helping to transform the health department, it was time we also transform other departments historically dominated by men. I had to start with the EMPD and DEMS, as they were identified as the departments most affected by gender inequality. In the EMPD, women were not featured in senior positions. We had to ensure women are treated equally,” she explained.
She said the project has been bearing fruit as great strides have been made in tackling gender bias to improve the lives of women and to place them on a better footing within the metro.
“Things have changed in the last four years. Now I can proudly report that we have appointed and promoted a lot of women into senior positions. We have also witnessed great progress in promotions in the EMPD with a number of women occupying senior positions, such as deputy director, chief superintendent, superintendents and inspectors.
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“Meanwhile, more than 400 women have been absorbed as traffic wardens. In the area of disaster management, we have two new female divisional heads. Furthermore, women are dominating the space with a figure of 110 females compared to the 63 male counterparts.
“A number of women have prioritised their studies to enable themselves to be considered for senior positions. Today, we are in the company of women with MBAs, honours and BTech degrees, and diplomas. Two years ago, I made an undertaking to have more female HODs in the metro, and indeed the council has duly obliged and good progress has been recorded in this area. “Currently, nine of the 23 HODs are female, making this 45 per cent.”
The city manager is confident that they will make more progress within the five-year term. She vowed that even after her term as a city manager has come to an end that she will continue advocating for equality. Mashazi is also hoping her successor will be a woman.
“In the City of Ekurhuleni, we have moved swiftly to meet the national target of 50 per cent women representation in senior positions, both politically and administratively. Our mayoral committee is 50 per cent female, with the speaker of council and the chair of chairs being female as well.
“The Ekurhuleni Women’s Empowerment Forum remains our strategic vehicle to promote gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment within the City of Ekurhuleni.”
Top Empowerment Awards 2020 winner
Mashazi’s hard work has not gone unnoticed. She recently received the Top Empowerment Award in the award’s public sector category for going above and beyond her duty to support employees, her decisive role in accelerating progress toward parity in the workplace and her role in ensuring excellence in performance and delivery in the public sector.
Mashazi said the award came as a surprise as she was not aware she had been nominated until someone called to congratulate her. She had no idea what the person was talking about until the person forwarded her photos of the award.
“I later discovered my personal assistant had decided to nominate me and kept it a secret. It was a surprise, but a lot of positive things have happened in the metro, such as the state-of-the-art clinics in the health department, improving the TB cure rate, improving the programmes with the HIV and Aids portfolio, and also working hard as a COO. I’m quite grateful and excited.”
Family
The city manager is married to an attorney-cum-businessman and have three children. She describes her family and her team at work as supportive structures. Talking about her background growing up, Mashazi said her late father was her role model. He prioritised education among his children and used to tell them their only inheritance is education.
“I tell my children they must prioritise education and acquire skills that will enable them to work for themselves.”
Educational background
- Diploma in General Nursing – Unisa – 1985
- Diploma in Midwifery – Unisa – 1986
- BCur (Nursing Science) – Unisa – 1992
- Diploma in Nursing Administration – Unisa – 1995
- Certificate in Industrial Audiometry – Technicon Witwatersrand – 1995
- Diploma in Primary Heath Care Service Management Programme – Wits Business School – 1997
- MCur Master in Nursing Science – RAU – 1998
- DLitt et Phil (Nursing Science) – Unisa – 2002
- National certificate in Municipal Financial Management – LGSETA – 2015
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