Four temporary administrators leave City of Tshwane

Four of the 10 temporary administrators have left the City of Tshwane administration team, while there is no word about them being replaced by the provincial government, Rekord reported.

First, Tshwane metro city manager Mavela Dlamini resigned in July due to health reasons and one of the other administrators, Mmaseabata Mutlaneng, filled his position.

A month later Shiva Makotoko left and at the end of September Lebogang Mahaye and Thulisile Njapa-Mashanda left.

The metro’s head administrator, Mpho Nawa, said aside from Dlamini the three others left due to their work obligations as they initially requested 90 days leave of absence from their places of work.

“People have left because this assignment was supposed to be only for three months and it has gone past that now,” he said.

“Makotoko requested to leave because he was given 90 days by his work. Going on longer was an issue and this was the same for Mahaye while Njapa-Mashanda was appointed as an administrator elsewhere.”

Nawa denied that they resigned because there was “some (kind of) problem in the metro”.

He said the vacant positions would not harm service delivery in the metro as the DA claimed.

The administration team now shares the responsibility to ensure service delivery takes place, he said.

Nawa dismissed the DA’s claims as “lies” and “a desperate move for power’’.

“For now there is no shortage. We have shared the responsibility and always worked as a team. The team can carry the responsibility because the portfolios were not segmented, we shared the responsibilities.

“Adding to this, we do not work alone. Some people are working from behind the scenes leading the metro,’’ he said.

“We are at lockdown level 1. As all the employees head to work to provide services to residents, we will continue to ensure services are delivered, so the function of the city will continue to take place.”

DA mayoral candidate Randall Williams, however, was not confident of the administration team’s ability to ensure services are delivered to residents.

“Tshwane has a population of about 3.3 million people. It is the third largest metropolitan city by geographic size in the world and requires a diverse set of skills to manage and administer.

“It is supposed to be led by an executive mayor, 10 members of the mayoral committee, the speaker of the council, the chief whip and 16 chairpersons of Section 79 oversight committees.

“This political leadership team is tasked with driving basic service delivery, providing oversight on spending and projects and ensuring that residents are represented locally through a responsive government.

“Instead, all of these responsibilities are sitting with a dwindling team of unlawfully deployed ANC administrators who are simply not capable of directing all the operations.”

The provincial government has not yet commented on whether the four vacant positions will be filled.

This article first appeared on Rekord and was republished with permission.

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