Blatant wasting of metro money

TODAY the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is due in court after its bosses failed to honour an order forcing them to give meaningful work to a senior employee, Nobuntu Makapela.

Makapela was an adviser in the office of former deputy mayor Nancy Sihlwayi. When Sihlwayi was ousted in March 2013, Makapela was moved out of that office by the then incoming deputy mayor, Chippa Ngcolomba.

He asked the corporate services department to “find her work elsewhere in the institution”. It did not.

Makapela subsequently challenged the municipality at the labour court – and won, proving that her contract was linked to the office of the deputy mayor and not the incumbent.

Ngcolomba had already replaced Makapela with his own adviser.

This meant the municipality had to find meaningful work – fitting of her R92 000 monthly salary – elsewhere in the institution. The municipality has yet to do so.

It ignored the court ruling and carried on paying Makapela the hefty amount without her doing any work for several months.

Not only is this a gross violation of her rights as an employee, it shows the blatant disregard with which municipal bosses have treated the public purse.

To have a high earning, skilled employee practically force her employer to give her work, in an institution that consistently bemoans a lack of capacity, simply does not make sense.

On Wednesday, city manager Mpilo Mbambisa hastily asked Makapela’s lawyers to drop the case, calling on her to report for duty yesterday.

This means there was no valid reason why the initial court order was ignored.

Because of this, we must believe that ratepayers’ money was wasted on this case either because of incompetence or political factionalism.