Eastern Cape Local Government MEC, Mlibo Qoboshiyane, has hit back at his critics in the ANC in the Metro over his appointment of a support team to help restore stability to the administration of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality.
The ANC's regional executive, under the leadership of former mayor Nceba Faku, lashed out yesterday at Qoboshiyane's appointment of a team in terms of Section of 154 of the Constitution to bolster the faltering administration.
They also slated the ongoing appointment of acting municipal manager Temba Hani who's been on contract since late last year.
In a statment on Tuesday, Qoboshiyane, said the last four remaning members of the so-called 154 team had been formally introduced to executive mayor, Zanoxolo Wayile, and their only goal is to restore service delivery to Nelson Mandela Bay.
The MEC called for everyone to get their hands dirty and not venture into what he called a lazy cold war.
Read the full statement from Qoboshiyane and the ANC below:
"The plan was simple. Build better communities- Build a better Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.
But as we have seen, there are a number of influences aimed at intercepting the support we are giving to the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro in order for this plan to be implemented fully.
This has a potential to hinder the operations and functioning of the Municipality.
We don't want to degenerate into comedy of errors by venturing into a name calling game.
Our responsibility is to focus on helping the Municipality to deliver water, sanitation, and electricity, refuse collection, library services, construction, human settlement, law enforcement and other services to the people of this area.
We note the statements issued by the opposition parties in the Council and by the ANC's Regional Executive committee.
Our interest is to ensure that this Municipality works efficiently, effectively and gives value for money service to our people.
It is time for all of us to put away childish things. This is time for us to work for the people of the Metro. It is time for all of us to dirty our hands in helping our people and not to venture into a lazy cold war that will not help anyone.
Through this statement, we are informing the people of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro about the status of the Section 154 Support we are implementing.
We are not going to remove our foot from the accelerator - we are here to ensure efficiency and to give support to the Metro to build better communities.
We are here to implement the task of our revolution, to build better communities.
Section154 is not a mistake for our municipalities, this is a well thought intervention to help rescue municipalities when the need arises.
Weaknesses were highlighted in the diagnostic report about the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro and we are attending to those.
We cannot simple come here and take-over a municipality. There is a legislated process that must be followed if and when Section 139 is implemented.
Our plan is to impart skills and knowledge on how best to salvage the issues highlighted in the diagnostic report.
That's why we brought an experienced support team to ensure they give credible support to various offices of the Metro.
When we look at the calibre of the people we seconded to the Metro, they posses good attributes that would help any municipality.
Insulting and ridiculing Section 154 team and support is counter-productive and is not progressive.
It is not helping efforts to help the municipality to deliver basic services to the people of the Nelson Mandela Metro.
The Section 154 support is going nowhere. We will remain here up until we finish the task we are given by the people of the Nelson Mandela Metro, the Constitution of the Republic, and by the ANC.
We need a stable administration in the Eastern Cape, including in the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality.
If some Councillors do not need Section 154, it is not difficult for us to implement a constitutional provision by engaging the Cabinet and all relevant stakeholders because we can't allow the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to collapse.
All we want is for the Metro to respond effectively to the needs of the people by closing existing service delivery gaps. Meeting the needs of our people in our communities is what must occupy all of us as leaders.
We don't believe we made a mistake by supporting the Nelson Mandela Bay and the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipalities through Section 154. It is our Constitutional responsibility to ensure that all our municipalities deliver on their mandates.
The additional team we seconded to the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro has been introduced to the Mayoral Committee, Officials and a memo is on its way to Council to introduce the four General Managers. The four will also be introduced to the labour unions.
We have received reports that some officials are being threatened and as a result, many have refused to be part of the Disciplinary hearing to attend to disciplinary cases against some officials.
One of the efforts of this Section 154 support team was to help the municipality to successfully apply to National Treasury for a rollover of the unspent R350 million. This money is now available to the Metro.
This and many instances of collaboration give us hope that our support is yielding positive results for our people. The Section 154 team is setting up a Project Management Unit for the Metro.
With all this work being done, we need Councillors from the ANC, opposition parties and all officials of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality to work with the Section 154 team, to work with the Executive Mayor and his Committee to deliver services to our people.
Inspired by the provisions of the Constitution, our responsibility is to help the Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality to structure and manage its administration and budgeting and planning processes to give priority to the basic needs of the community, and to promote the social and economic development of the community.
While some of our leaders act in a manner contrary to what is expected of leadership, scores of our people are waiting for services, help and support to alleviate their plight.
Business community is waiting for services that will inspire economic growth in this area. Social organisations are waiting for support programmes from the Council in order to help scores of the needy.
Therefore, we don't have time to play around. We have time to build better communities. We have time to work with those interested in developing the Metro. This is the work we will do without expecting any joy from those not interested in progressive work.
We should also focus on getting the Metro ready for the African Cup of Nations tournament to be hosted here next year. All hands must work together to deliver good services to our visitors.
In few weeks time, we will have the Rugby Sevens in the Metro and other sporting events. These activities must find us ready not wanting.
We believe that we will accomplish the objectives of Section 154. People of the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro must not panic.
This Metro will never collapse. We will never allow it to collapse. Working with all stakeholders, we will lead it to growth and development."
ANC Regional Executive Committee Statement:
The African National Congress (ANC) Nelson Mandela Regional Executive Committee (REC) has briefed and consulted with the leadership of Branches about the entire state of governance and the situation in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM). The Branches have mandated us to move on and brief the broader constituency of the NMBM.
This is done because, as the African National Congress, we are accountable to the electorate that democratically put us in power. We are obliged to let them know every exact detail in what is happening about their rates and taxes, about economic development, infrastructure development and service delivery performance.
When the ANC campaigned for your votes, we promised to build better communities, to prioritise the fight against corruption and crime, to create decent work, and to decisively address poverty. On this basis, the people of this Metro voted us into office and it is on this basis that we will be measured.
The African National Congress in this Region has noted that, in the recent past period, the NMBM has been underperforming on all of these mandates given to us by the people and we cannot and will not sit by and be quiet about a Municipality that we are supposed to drive in order to achieve the mandate given to us by the people.
We are particularly disturbed by the manner in which the MEC for Local Government and Traditional Affairs has made interventions in the NMBM, the most significant and notorious of these is on the secondment of the Acting Municipal Manager.
The impression that was created by those who removed Mr. Elias Ntoba was that the decision to terminate his contract was as a result of dissatisfaction with regard to his performance. He was seconded to the Metro with the dual purpose of providing administrative stability and assisting with the process of appointing a permanent Municipal Manager.
It was felt by the political leadership of the Municipality that both these objectives as set for Mr Ntoba were never achieved, hence the termination of his contract. Enter the MEC:
1. Instead of seconding a senior employee amongst his departmental ranks, the MEC decided to second a fourth level employee (Assistant Director in NMBM) from the provincial administration whose main area of focus was local economic development as the acting Municipal Manager for the NMBM.
2. This was the biggest mistake ever made by the MEC for Local Government - Mr Hani never worked in any municipal administration position let alone being given the task of occupying a senior position in a complex municipal environment.
3. His secondment objective was to assist in appointing a permanent Municipal Manager whilst bringing about stability in the metro administration. He has dismally failed to provide stability as the administration is in a state of chaos! We find it rather "rich" of the MEC to now say that the administration of the NMBM is lacking in its performance - it is lacking in its performance because of the MEC's secondment of Hani!
4. Hani's so-called efforts to assist in the appointment of Municipal Manager have failed twice already! The reason for this big failure is because of the fact that Hani saw this as an opportunity for him to become the Municipal Manager - he actually applied for the post! This is clearly a gross conflict of interest! Hence he will never be able to achieve his mandate as Acting Municipal Manager of this lovely and friendly city.
5. Hani has overstayed his mandate of 3 months for the appointment of a permanent Municipal Manager. He has been here since November 2011. In terms of the Local Government Systems Amendment Act, he cannot serve in this position for longer than 3 months and extending his secondment for another 3 months may only be done so under extreme and exceptional circumstances. In fact, Council has NOT approved his appointment beyond 18 July 2012. He is here illegally!
6. Hani became part of political factors in the Nelson Mandela Region by suspending Dr. S.W. Vatala - who is known to have received the highest scores in the first proper Municipal Manager recruitment process - within 5 days of his appointment as Acting Municipal Manager!
7. Upon Hani's overstay, he suspended a number of senior Managers including the non-renewal of a contract of an experienced official in the Executive Mayor's Office. What makes things even worse is that the Council has taken a principled decision to extend the expiring contracts of senior managers for a period of three months for notification purposes but this particular employee received a 2 day notification to terminate his contract and clean him out of the system.
8. Hani is the chief architect of all these costly suspensions because all the above-mentioned four officials are on suspension on full pay for more than 8 months at least without finalizing their cases.
9. All these suspensions are costly to the institution and constitute a severe damage to the service delivery in this Metro due to the seniority of the individuals being suspended. It should be clear that any form of corruption by municipal employees cannot be condoned and disciplinary measures should be taken against them. However, suspending people for six months on full pay without any charges is a disgrace and a waste of financial resources for the municipality.
10. Section 154 has been requested to drive the projects since March 2012 and to date no draft or final product has been approved by Council and the project has just gone dead.
The African National Congress in this region is observing many irresponsible and incompetent acts committed by its strategic deployees in Council. These incompetencies and contraventions of good governance executed by the Executive Mayor, include:
a. Placement of officials from supervisory positions to highest grades without following correct NMBM human resource procedures, e.g. Mayoral Spokesperson, Political Advisor, Executive Mayor's Security Guards (despite national security advice), etc.
b. Inability to implement a council adopted organogram during the passing of the IDP and Budget (2011/12).
c. Costly commissioning of investigation on the establishment of Ward Committees whilst the process enabled broadest community participation.
d. Total neglect of the recommendations made by Legal Division on the establishment of Ward Committees.
e. Litigations for and against the NMBM e.g. MTN - VODACOM, Metro Security, prolonged Municipal Employees' Suspensions, Moko Construction, unlawful dismissal of Director for Metro Police Project Team, etc.
f. Subsequent commissioning for the development of another organogram creating confusion in the institution (section 154 support) whilst incurring high costs on incomplete processes. [Note to editor's: The organogram was officially adopted by a full Council as part of the IDP on 28 June 2011. After this, Wayile refused to implement the organogram, for reasons known only to him.]
g. The recent appointment of the Acting Executive Director for Corporate Services brought another confusion in the development of this "third organogram".
h. Having requested the MEC to provide Section 154 support to the Municipality, the MEC seconded a team of officials to implement an interventionist plan developed by the Minister's office in conjuction with the Executive Mayor.
i. However, NO organizational diagnostic report was done which involves the current senior officials and politicians of the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to enable them to identify and support the areas of intervention.
j. Instead it was the Executive Mayor's decision to approach the MEC and the Ministers on areas which he perceived as needing support for the metro. NO decision by the Council was made in this regard, NO specific identification of areas requiring intervention was made, NO critical analysis of functional areas was done, and NO human vs financial resources assessment was made.
The MEC's office continued to increase incompetency as it continued to provide this so-called "support" before the Council could even resolve that it in fact needed this "support". It must be stressed that a section 154 process plan was presented but was highly disputed by both political leadership of the Municipality and senior managers.
That dispute was the aggravation of the problem in as far as section 154 support was concerned and not the solution to the Metro's problem as envisaged. In actual fact section 154 was imposed by the Executive Mayor on the Municipal Council - since then officials became hostile because of the unclear mandate of section 154 "support team" and the synergy and integration with the current the institutional framework and the respective KPAs and KPIs of incumbent municipal officials. The purpose of introducing Section 154 was to provide support to the existing senior managers of the municipality - NOT to act in existing vacant positions within the Metro. Because of Hani's incompetency, the MEC's false "assistance", and the Wayile's intent to plunge our Metro into chaos, the NMBM is sliding to qualified audit.
We note that the MEC's office deployed the first group of ten officials from December 2011 and the latest four with Acting Executive Director and General Managers in October 2012. The four are placed at the respective offices of Corporate Services, Chief Operating Officer, Infrastructure & Engineering and Chief Financial Officer. It is very clear to the Branches of the African National Congress that these deployments are due to the fact that the NMBM is one of the richest municipalities in the Eastern Cape and the MEC's Office, through these "secondments", would have direct control over the finances and operations of these departments and their funds.
Having presented all these deliberate inefficiencies, the ANC in the Nelson Mandela region demands the following:
(i) Immediate withdrawal of the incompetent Acting Municipal Manager as his contract ended while ago. [Note to Editors: Hani's acting appointment was approved by Council up until 18 July 2012. It has never been approved beyond that date.]
(ii) Immediate withdrawal of Section 154 support as it has yielded no results. In fact, the opposite is occurring and the "support team" is plunging this Metro into chaos. A case in point is that our municipality has for the past 5 years been getting unqualified audits and currently the situation is leading towards a qualified audit.
(iii) Immediate implementation of the approved organogram in order to activate the appointment of the Municipal Manager and Executive Directors.
(iv) Immediate implementation of the Legal opinion on Ward Committee establishment.
(v) Immediate stopping of all politically motivated (intended) suspensions of municipal officials.
(vi) Stopping of unilateral appoints without following due municipal processes on recruitment and selection.
(vii) Establish an inclusive process of immediately addressing all discrepancies related to recruitment, ending and renewal of contracts without following reasonable procedures and ability of council to keep needed potentials and experience within the institution.
(viii) Voluntary resignation by all those affected.
As is the norm throughout the country, the African National Congress, as the ruling party, established mechanisms and structures equivalent to each level of the municipal organisation to provide guidance as well as direct the work of governance. Our region is not an exception to such a constitutional mechanisms and procedures.
It is against this background that the ANC in the Nelson Mandela region calls on all deployees regardless of which level they come from, to respect the constitutional mechanisms of the African National Congress. This is referred to even the MEC for Local Government and the Minister of Cooperative Governance. The ANC lives and leads through its constitutional structures. Deployees should always be informed and guided by the relevant structure on the kind of work they pursue in the Nelson Mandela region.
The bottom line is that the mandate given to the African National Congress by the people and stakeholders of this Region is being sacrificed due to the selfish, incompetent and malicious intents of a few unscrupulous characters. This city has a proud history and record in local governance, as presided over by the African National Congress. The past period has been a sorry and sad one for the people of this Metro and it is the duty of the ANC to get it back to its best. If these unscrupulous characters do the right thing, the ANC will deliver on its mandate and make this Nelson Mandela Bay the developmental and prosperous city it is capable of being.
The people of this great city deserve better! For this reason, the people of this city voted in the African National Congress. And it is for this reason that the African National Congress needs to take charge of this situation and again make Nelson Mandela Bay the best city in the country! As the Regional leadership of this city, we will do so and no-one will stop of us from delivering on the mandate of the people!
