Tshwane faces criticism over ‘ill-advised’ move to appoint senior managers amid financial crisis

The City of Tshwane’s intent to appoint seven new senior managers to help it to get out of its financial woes received mixed reactions from experts.

It surfaced this week that Tshwane was one of the metros battling to pay Eskom its R3.2 billion debt. Mayor Cilliers Brink said it was no secret that the city was in financial distress and was behind on payments to Eskom.

Roles ‘important’ for Tshwane

Brink said that’s why the approval of the appointment of qualified and fit-for-purpose senior managers in the city was an important development.

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“The senior Section 56 managers will help to change the organisational culture to one of high performance and professionalism,” he said.

Brink said the selected candidates will occupy the roles of chief of police, chief of emergency services, chief financial officer, chief operations officer, chief audit executive, group head: strategy and management support and governance and support officer in the city, and will report to the city manager.

Political analyst Piet Croucamp said it could be they still had vacant positions and those positions were required to sign off on some documents.

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“When it comes to money, there are very specific signatures required and if those positions are not filled, you need to find a way to sign the document and not offend the auditor-general, for instance,” he said.

Crisis looming

Economist Dawie Roodt said many municipalities were in financial distress.

“I don’t know how they will get out of it. If the national government doesn’t jump in and help local government, we will run into crisis,” he said.

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Roodt said there was also a legacy problem where the corporate memory was removed and the replacements didn’t know how to run a city.

“It doesn’t matter who the ruling party is, the fact is most of the municipality’s finances and infrastructure are in distress,” he said.

Roodt said the only way was when strong politicians made politically unpopular decisions, including “getting rid of the rotten apples”.

Transformation Alliance leader Abel Tau said it was an ill-advised decision considering the city’s intention to also fill the vacancies left by dismissed striking workers.

“It reeks of arrogance and is provocative,” he said.

Tau has called on the city to reconsider its move.

“We understand that the dismissed workers are appealing the city’s decision to fire them, thus making this matter subjudice. Therefore, any move to replace the dismissed workers would be illegal,” he said.

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Tau said for a city “that was failing to resolve a three-month-long strike, and struggling to deliver basic services, it shows Tshwane knows how to be provocative”.

“Clearly, residents of the city are not a priority,” he said.

– marizkac@citizen.co.za