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A total of 200 experienced technical staff, including 24 technicians and 21 artisans have left Nelson Mandela Bay’s Infrastructure and Engineering Directorate over the past six years.
A report to the Infrastructure, Engineering and Energy Committee that meets Thursday says that the result is that years of experience and expertise has been lost.
It adds that the loss of experience is much greater when compared to the staff employed at the establishment of the Metro.
The report points out that since then, at regular intervals, funds for the filling of critical vacancies have been diverted elsewhere.
The result of this is that the provision for the vacancies budget available for the employment of staff has shrunk to such an extent that the vacant positions on the organograms of the directorate cannot be filled.
The report says as a result of the loss of many experienced technicians and engineers and inability of the directorate to employ suitably qualified engineering staff, an intensified bursary campaign had been launched in 2004.
The Directorate says that this programme, although long term, is beginning to bear fruit, despite the fact that the financial challenges experienced by the Metro have meant that no funding has been available for the project since 2010.
At this stage, 38 people have benefited from the bursary scheme of which 22 have completed their studies and have been employed as junior technicians or graduate engineers.
Two challenges now exist, it says, one of which is the lack of funds which means bursary students may not be employed by the municipality which will defeat the objective, while the other is that the directorate lacks the capacity to mentor the young engineers and technicians.
The Directorate recommends that funds be made available for it to employ bursary students when they qualify and that retired engineers be contracted to mentor new graduates as well as other inexperienced staff.
(Source: Metro Minute - to subscribe mail metminutes@iafrica.com)
