Irregular hirings cost metro R1bn

A DAMNING report on the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality’s staff structure revealed that not only was the metro in breach of the law by not having an approved organogram, it also hired scores of employees irregularly.

Former administration heads and executive directors bypassed the city’s human resources department and hired staff for positions that were not on an organogram and had to be condoned later by human resources.

The positions were, however, never updated on the organogram.

Corporate services acting executive director Vuyo Zitumane said while officials were trying to quantify the exact number of positions that had been filled irregularly, the estimated cost of the extra jobs was about R1-billion.

At a corporate services portfolio committee meeting on Friday, Zitumane said the organogram that was drawn up in 2011 had never been approved by the council.

Her team is working on presenting a revised version of the 2011 organogram to the council on Thursday for approval by including some of the extra posts that were irregularly filled to comply with the Municipal Structures Act.

“Different documents provide different figures for the number of staff in the institution,” Zitumane said.

“There are a significant number of positions that are not compliant with the structures act. If we quantify it into money, it is close to R1-billion.

“This is why we are auditing the payroll to ensure that whoever we pay is a living, warm body.”

She wrote in her report that the present number of staff in the institution was disproportionate even with the old, pre-2011 organogram.

Zitumane reported that the process of making some of the positions legal had to be done in a way that did not prejudice the rights of employees.

Her interim plan to resolve the organogram debacle is to first get the council to approve the 2011 organogram as a baseline, and then find out how many positions were filled with a municipal manager’s approval since 2011.

Meanwhile, Zitumane said her department was trying to see how to make long-serving contract and temporary workers permanent.

“We can’t have a situation where we have contract employees for more than 12 years and not make them permanent,” she said.

“We also have temporary workers for about five years. We have to see how we can integrate those jobs to permanent. We can’t wish them away.”