EDITOR – A 48 page report on employment equity (EE) tabled at the meeting of the eThekwini Economic Development and Planning committee on November 19 raises questions about the efficacy of service delivery and governance.
According to provincially prescribed employment targets, 82% of posts in eThekwini Metro are reserved for Africans, 10% for Indians, 6% for whites and 2% for coloureds.
The eThekwini EE report noted that there were 2,099 unfilled vacancies across Metro departments. At the same time, it conceded that a skills shortage and the rigidity of recruitment policies posed challenges to the implementation of EE.
This raises the following questions:
- Has governance and service delivery become a hostage to prescribed racial employment ratios?
- Are skills available which cannot be employed because they breach a specific racial quota level?
- Are careers in local government being denied by those eminently qualified because of EE prescription?
- How is this situation compatible with the stated EE aim of ‘the elimination of unfair discrimination?’
- How does EE policy square with the preamble of the Constitution, which aims ‘to free the potential of each person’ within a society based on non-racialism?
COUNCILLOR DUNCAN DU BOIS
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