Fire incompetent Bay managers

"INCOMPETENT managers could be axed" (October 1) – these are the words of Pravin Gordhan. Now where have I heard those words before?

I've always had some respect for Gordhan when he was still finance minister and impressive were his budget speeches when he, cool and calm as a man in that position should be, delivered his budget speech with professionalism.

Over and above that, and which impressed me most during those speeches, was the way he attempted to educate members of parliament/ ministers on what they should do to improve service delivery, manage finances, care for "our people" and serve them better – and those famous words we hear so often, "to provide a better life for all South Africans".

He sounded like he really knew what he was talking about, making every effort to encourage his fellow ministers to perform at their best but alas, those words fell on deaf ears. However he must be commended for his efforts.

The shoe is now on the other foot and he is now "one of them", a minister who must now also roll up his sleeves, stop preaching and start doing. In his new position, did he not visit Port Elizabeth in recent months in an attempt to assist the city's management with financial planning, putting people in place to monitor what the NMBM heads were doing in an effort to turn the metro around?

Now he is back here saying: "We must ask ourselves serious questions about the amount of capacity we do have in municipalities".

First he needs to explain who the "we" is. If he is referring to himself and other ministers, yes, "we" must ask but please do not tell us (the residents) that, just do it.

Should you not have asked that question the last time you were here? Perhaps if you did, you would have had an answer for yourself by now and you should by now have, not "could have" but should have axed some managers.

However, in the very same article we (the residents) must now again read about Mod Ndoyana and his failure to comply with the specifications laid down by National Treasury to secure his position. To make matters worse, they actually extended his probation period by six months and still he has failed to comply.

If that was not enough, they tried to employ Kumaran Nair as the chief financial officer also without having the required education and qualifications. After all of this, now Gordhan raises the issues "we need to ask ourselves".

He further states there are rules in place to govern how appointments should be made and obviously these rules must be adhered to. He continues: "If, despite the rules, wrong appointments are made, we must get involved".

There is the famous "we" again. And we (the residents) wholeheartedly agree with you, you need to get involved, otherwise who will?

Gordhan then goes on to explain that his department has embarked on a study of 278 municipalities over a period of six to eight weeks. This would give his department roughly 40 days given a five-day week.

That would mean that they would have to have investigated approximately seven municipalities in one day. Wow, did they phone and ask how the municipalities were doing?

Then strangely enough they come up with amazing statistics like a third were doing well, a third doing "OK." and a third doing "terribly". Wonder where NMBM fitted in.

I would say Gordhan has got one thing right and that is those municipalities that operate correctly are the ones where there is little or no political interference, and it is like Helen Zille once commented, "you need to separate politics (ANC) from the government". It is no secret that this metro is run by a political party and not government, and that is what Gordhan should focus on.

We look forward to the "concrete plan and results" that he refers to.

I will keep my copy of this edition of The Herald as a reminder of Gordhan's statement and will be interested to see what transpires, that is will "we" be doing something about the mess in NMBM or was this just another "talk and no action" trip by the man I used to have some respect for? Then again, I also realise, shame, he is not a true "comrade", just does not fit the profile and therefore just another guy who's probably on his way out and basically trying to keep his position as a minister.

George van der Merwe, South End, Port Elizabeth