Sowetan

Mashaba to kick out corrupt city employees

- Moipone Malefane and Bongani Nkosi

CITY of Johannesbu­rg mayor Herman Mashaba waisted no time telling the city’s employees that anyone who intent to be corrupt should make way for profession­als.

Mashaba wrote a letter to all employees a day after he was elected, informing them that during campaignin­g his party made a commitment to root out fraud and corruption in the city and “we trust that you’ll help us in this regard”.

“Those intent on being corrupt must make way for the profession­als among us who have answered the call to serve.

“My expectatio­n of you is that you will strive to reach even higher levels of profession­alism in serving our people.” Mashaba’s letter reads.

Yesterday, Mashaba confirmed the letter, saying his message to the employees was to tell them that he needed to work with people who have the skills manpower to serve the people, not their political parties.

“I want to bring a new culture of profession­alism. Our human resources will do a skills audit of all employees to check if they are qualified for what they are employed to do.”

He said that did not mean he would fire people but they may be moved to other department­s or even put on training.

Mashaba was elected mayor on Monday evening and the city is now run by the DA. He’s expected to reveal his mayoral committee members council (MMCs) public tomorrow.

All the employees who are political appointees are to lose their jobs, but their bosses will probably be on the opposition benches in the council.

Meanwhile, City of Tshwane mayor Solly Msimanga was expected to unveil his 10 MMCs yesterday but the announceme­nt was postponed.

Msimanga’s acting spokesman Matthew Gerstner broke the news to a group of journalist­s who arrived at the metro’s offices in Centurion. Apologisin­g to the reporters, Gerstner said the scheduled briefing coincided with Msimanga’s address at another event in the city.

Msimanga and his political party, the DA, have received stinging criticism for allegedly appointing mostly white councillor­s to the committee.

Only two of the 10 members, Mandla Nkomo and Ntsiki Mokhotho, are black – and five are white males. One member, Bruce Lee, is an Asian of Chinese descent. Another criticism against the committee is that it is 70% male, with only three women – Mokhotho, Marietha Aucamp and Mare-Lise Fourie.

On Tuesday, the DA in Tshwane confirmed the MMC list to the media, but yesterday Msimanga told a radio station he would release his official MMC list tomorrow.

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