Tshwane not out to purge senior managers, says city manager
This comes after Tshwane placed five senior officials on precautionary suspension as the trust had deteriorated between the staffers and the metro after they allegedly were negligent in the controversial awarding of the Rooiwal tender.
Tshwane’s city manager has dismissed the perception that the administration is out to purge senior managers in the metro.
According to Johann Mettler, his job is to establish and manage a rule-based organisation.
“It has come to my attention that some of you (staffers) may feel a little bit of trepidation because you are of the view that they may be some of the other blacklists that I have aimed at raiding this municipality of certain managers.
“Let me be quite clear with you, there is no such thing,” said Mettler.
Mettler said all decisions to be taken must be lawful, in line with the employee’s job description, and always in the municipality’s interest.
“Where staff members operate outside of this mentioned perimeters, that is where irregular expenditure will be incurred and I am, by law, obligated to investigate and recover such expenditure.
“I know that most of the staff are honest, hardworking and ethical officials,” said Mettler.
This comes after Tshwane placed five senior officials on precautionary suspension for the controversial Rooiwal tender award.
Mettler decided to suspend the employees on full pay, pending a review of the ruling by the Labour Court.
He said the decision to suspend the officials was in light of the nature and severity of the charges, and that the trust between them and the municipality had broken down irretrievably.
“The officials are senior employees of the municipality, and the majority of them on the BEC (Bid Evaluation Committee) are engineers and ought to have applied themselves properly when evaluating the tender regarding the belt pressers,” Mettler said.
According to metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba, the suspension follows a year-long internal disciplinary process that found the officials guilty of one of the four charges they faced.
Bokaba said the metro is of the view that the officials’ presence at the workplace will be detrimental to the stability of the municipality.
The officials are charged with being grossly negligent in the performance of their duties and it is believed their conduct led to breaches of legislation, policies and codes of conduct.
Bokaba said the officials would remain suspended pending a review of the ruling.
“Tshwane issued the five officials with an intended letter of suspension on Wednesday and [they] were afforded the opportunity to make representations on why they shouldn’t be suspended. A final determination was made Friday, April 19 to place them on precautionary suspension with full pay.”
Bokaba said the chairperson of the disciplinary committee recommended that the five officials be suspended for one month without pay, but the metro disagreed with his ruling.
He said the metro disagreed with the outcome of the disciplinary process and resolved to appeal the entire outcome at the Labour Court.
The officials faced the following charges:
– Allowing Blackhead Consulting to proceed to the next stage of the evaluation without being registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB).
– Consensus-based decision-making instead of evaluating independently as members of the BEC.
– Inclusion of Blackhead Consulting to render professional services in circumstances where the city had already appointed a company to render professional services.
– Evaluating the winning bidder on a 1.4m belt press width when the specification required a 2m width.
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