City continues with jobs drive
JOBURG Health and Social Development MMC Ashley Sauls has rubbished claims that his new Gates Must Balance recruitment drive was meant to employ more coloureds in the city’s clinics and offices.
Last week Sauls announced that he had challenged senior staff in his office to balance the employment scales after finding out that the race ratio in his department was not a true reflection of South Africa.
At least 1 000 jobs were to be advertised with the hope that those who get employed will ensure that race quotas in the city were balanced.
The Goetes Moet Balance/Izinto Mele Zilingane recruitment drive seeks to address the hopelessness which has been experienced by race groups who have been left feeling as though their applications to work in the city are never successful, resulting in an employment demographic which is not representative of the racial demographics of the city.
Speaking to The Star, Sauls said he would continue with the recruitment drive despite criticism from unions and opposition parties.
According to Sauls, the employment targets for whites, Indians and coloureds had not been met.
The employment targets for Africans had over-exceeded the target by almost 80%.
“In this political office it is quite clear that there should be employment equity… that’s the law. When we came in, we looked at the employment target for the city and plans for this department. We had several meetings and we found that there was no balance with the employment equity targets,” Sauls said.
He said he believed that the failure to balance employment targets was unfair and should not be tolerated.
“The unions must show me in terms of the numbers and they must tell me how this is fair. For African females for example it exceeded by more than 1 000, This was intentional marginalisation.”
Sauls, who is the Patriotic Alliance (PA) MMC in the multi-party coalition, said the PA was also clear that where there is marginalisation the scales should be balanced. “We are not saying we want one particular race, we are saying we want every race in this department. I want to walk into a clinic and see South Africans.”