Sanco calls for care by MEC
Concern about Lukhanji job candidate
THE South African National Civic Organisation (Sanco) has called on local government and traditional affairs MEC Fikile Xasa to delay the appointment of the Lukhanji municipal manager.
In a press briefing on Wednesday, Sanco regional secretary Mbuyiselo Ntsabo said Sanco was not saying the proposed candidate, whose name is known to The Rep, should not be hired, but was calling for a delay in the appointment until related queries had been resolved. “We are avoiding what happened with the former municipal manager Gregory Brown who was appointed (while) not meeting the requirements and was later given a (golden) hand shake. Sanco is trying it level best to sustain stability in the municipality and we are not micro managing Lukhanji. We are also avoiding mass actions and opposition parties from using the appointment as a tool to fight the ANC-led municipality.”
A circular had stated that by September, all senior managers would have to have the Certificate Programme in Management Development of Municipal Finance (CPMD) which the favoured candidate apparently does not have. “The CPMD is a must have requirement for municipal manager as espoused in the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) regulation 493 on minimum competency levels for senior managers published in Gazette no 29967 on June 15 2007.”
Sanco wrote a letter to Xasa raising their concerns, pointing out that wrong appointments were the source of poor performance in terms of service delivery protest and mass actions.
“We have been trying to prevent mass actions arising from inappropriate appointments in our municipality from taking place for the past three years,” he said.
He is claiming that the candidate has an affidavit in place of her Grade 12 certificate which was apparently lost (similar to that of SABC boss Hlaudi Motsoeneng who is currently in court) while the fact that she does not have a CPMD undermines the MFMA regulation 493 on minimum competency levels for senior managers published in the Gazette.
“The CPMD is not optional it is a must have minimum requirement. The political stability we sustained for the past three years cannot be sacrificed for something we could have easily avoided, by appointing somebody whose credentials are unquestionable,” he said.
He appealed to the MEC to ensure the candidate met the requirements before making the appointment. “Failure to heed our pleas will force us to consider plan B, which consequences are too ghastly to contemplate. We hope that our pleas will not fall on deaf ears, for the sake of stability during (the) pre-election period,” Ntsabo said, adding that Sanco would also consider legal options.
It would be ‘an embarrassment to the alliance’ as the ratepayers and the DA as opportunists will jump onto the bandwagon, he said, warning that ‘this appointment will blow up in our faces.”
Local government and traditional affairs spokesman Mamkeli Ngam said the MEC was still looking at the application for concurrence on the appointment and, once a decision had been made, it would be communicated with Lukhanji.