Sort out suspensions, acting city boss told
Peter Neilson, the electricity director who has been parachuted to the acting city manager post, has been told to deal with the longstanding disciplinary cases as a priority.
This, along with ensuring the city is ready for the summer season, is among mayor Mongameli Bobani’s main requests, according to Neilson, who officially took over on Monday from council-approved acting city boss Noxolo Nqwazi.
He is the third person to act in the position after city manager Johann Mettler was placed on precautionary suspension in September and subsequently suspended on November 2 for alleged misconduct.
Bobani said on Sunday that Nqwazi had been relieved of the acting city boss position because she was needed by the sports and recreation department to ensure the summer season went ahead without glitches.
She had not been officially informed of the decision at the time.
Opposition parties have labelled Neilson’s appointment by Bobani as “absurd”, saying he had not made the cut for an executive director position that he had applied for and it thus did not make sense for him to be given the top job.
Neilson applied for the position of the city’s executive director of electricity and energy, but did not get the job.
A master’s degree is generally required to land a job as a city manager, along with experience and having undergone minimum competency courses prescribed by the National Treasury.
Some municipalities do, however, hire people with bachelor’s degrees.
But Neilson, who holds a national diploma in electrical engineering, is confident his 39 years of experience in local government will make up for this.
Neilson said he had been briefed on Monday on the priorities by Bobani, along with infrastructure and engineering head Andile Lungisa, budget and treasury portfolio head Mkhuseli Mtsila and mayoral committee member in charge of human resources and corporate services Makhi Feni.
The coalition government has been vocal about its frustration with delayed disciplinary cases, saying paying people to sit at home led to wasteful expenditure.
Earlier in November, the municipality sent a letter to Gray Moodliar, the firm representing the city in a number of disciplinary cases and court actions against some staff, saying it should halt all proceedings until further notice and give a full report on the status of the cases.
Neilson said he had been in-
The coalition government has been vocal about its frustration with delayed disciplinary cases
structed to find out exactly what caused the delays.
“My brief has been relatively simple so far,” he said.
“I have been briefed that there is a lot of wasteful expenditure with regards to officials who are on suspension and court cases.
“We need to, as an institution, understand where everything is.
“We need to summarise where everything is and we need to take decisions in order to get everything actioned in a proper manner.”