Peter Neilson, the electricity director who has been parachuted to the acting city manager post, has been told to deal with the longstanding disciplinary cases as a priority.
This, along with ensuring the city is ready for the summer season, is among mayor Mongameli Bobani’s main requests, according to Neilson, who officially took over on Monday from council-approved acting city boss Noxolo Nqwazi.
He is the third person to act in the position after city manager Johann Mettler was placed on precautionary suspension in September and subsequently suspended on November 2 for alleged misconduct.
Bobani said on Sunday that Nqwazi had been relieved of the acting city boss position because she was needed by the sports and recreation department to ensure the summer season went ahead without glitches.
She had not been officially informed of the decision at the time.
Opposition parties have labelled Neilson’s appointment by Bobani as “absurd”, saying he had not made the cut for an executive director position that he had applied for and it thus did not make sense for him to be given the top job.
Neilson applied for the position of the city’s executive director of electricity and energy, but did not get the job.
A master’s degree is generally required to land a job as a city manager, along with experience and having undergone minimum competency courses prescribed by the National Treasury.
Some municipalities do, however, hire people with bachelor’s degrees.
But Neilson, who holds a national diploma in electrical engineering, is confident his 39 years of experience in local government will make up for this.
Neilson said he had been briefed on Monday on the priorities by Bobani, along with infrastructure and engineering head Andile Lungisa, budget and treasury portfolio head Mkhuseli Mtsila and mayoral committee member in charge of human resources and corporate services Makhi Feni.
The coalition government has been vocal about its frustration with delayed disciplinary cases, saying paying people to sit at home led to wasteful expenditure.
Earlier in November, the municipality sent a letter to Gray Moodliar, the firm representing the city in a number of disciplinary cases and court actions against some staff, saying it should halt all proceedings until further notice and give a full report on the status of the cases.
Neilson said he had been instructed to find out exactly what caused the delays.
“My brief has been relatively simple so far,” he said.
“I have been briefed that there is a lot of wasteful expenditure with regards to officials who are on suspension and court cases.
“We need to, as an institution, understand where everything is.
“We need to summarise where everything is and we need to take decisions in order to get everything actioned in a proper manner.”
Neilson said the instruction had not included in which direction the disciplinary cases should go.
“The [political] leadership isn’t fully aware of what is dragging and what isn’t being done. I have been instructed that we need to resolve all these things [as] we have got a number of cases with a number of attorneys in many different ways; not just disciplinary cases but also cases where there is litigation.
“There are some cases that haven’t even had a hearing yet and the brief was to ensure that we have this is focused in a proper way that we could take an informed decision on what would be the best way of concluding this for council.
“We have to try and put it in a package that would be the most viable for the municipality to get everything resolved in whatever way that it has to be resolved,” Neilson said.
With respect to other administrative matters, Neilson said there had been some hindrances around national Treasury compliance matters.
He said he was in the process of understanding them as he was unfamiliar with them.
“Everything is seeming to come to culmination now and there are a few things that are problematic with regards to our grant funding and what we need to do to ensure that we are in line with all of national Treasury’s expectations."
In preparation for the summer season, Neilson said he was yet to meet with all executive directors to ensure that all departments were fully staffed to ensure that service delivery continues uninterrupted during the summer season.
Neilson’s appointment has, however, not been welcomed by the opposition who said the move made no sense.
DA Eastern Cape leader and Bay councillor Nqaba Bhanga said they would ask cooperative governance and traditional affairs minister Zweli Mkhize and MEC Fikile Xasa to intervene by providing Section 154 support.
“We woke up this morning to news that Nqwazi has been removed as acting city manager. To our surprise a junior director had been appointed with no proper qualifications. For God’s sake, the gentlemen does not even have a degree, he only has a higher certificate.”
“It is absurd. Are we really going to be reduced to that? Mr Neilson himself knows that he does not qualify for this job, we have executive directors but they are all refusing to act,” Bhanga said.
“We have a crisis and that is why we are calling for support as we see that these people will not stop,” he said.
In his defence, Neilson said: “From a point of view of experience and being able to logically assist in getting things done and dealing with bottlenecks, I have done that my whole career.
“For a person who understands the different business of the municipality and different service delivery functions of the municipality as well as the financial side and supply chain management, all the different sides that you find in a municipality, I probably know as much of that as anyone in the country because I have been in the environment for 39 years.”
“One can argue at anytime about the qualifications, one could argue that you are qualified to be a city manager but if you have no contract experience, no managerial experience , no finance or infrastructure and you haven’t been exposed to the good and the bad times, sometimes having logical experience can help the situation.
“I am probably not qualified but it depends on what it is that I could do to help the city and make some good impact,” Neilson said.
Patriotic Alliance councillor Marlon Daniels said he was still wrapping his head around the new developments in the metro.
“Seeing in the paper about the manner that she [Nqwazi] was made aware sent me into a state of confusion, I am still trying to wrap my head around all of these developments.
“I have serious concerns because this is the same guy who went and approved a project to change perfectly working streetlights to LED lights in Summerstrand, he was also not qualified for that position is he qualified at all for this position,” Neilson said.
EFF Nelson Mandela Bay chair Ngawethu Madaka said they were not consulted about the changes, however they did not expect to be consulted as they are not in the coalition.
“Right now we are not concerned but we are just curious and we would like to hear what the reasons for removing Nqwazi and then we will decide if there is a need to be concerned,” Madaka said.
Madaka said he would request a meeting with Bobani for a briefing on the matter.
ACDP councillor Lance Grootboom said the changes to the administration would bring instability.
“This is very sad because this is the third acting city manager. This brings a lot of instability but it also brings questions as to why city managers are chopping and changing and we believe that the explanation that has been given is not a sound explanation,” Grootboom said.
“The ACDP understands that there is pressure being put on officials to sign off on illegal things and they choose to resign.” Bobani said Neilson was more than qualified to act as city manager.
“Neilson was the acting executive director for electricity and energy for some time, in fact he was short listed by the DA for that job.
“We must also remember that there is no vacancy here as we still have a city manager, because of that the act doesn’t apply,” Bobani said.
“The DA even recommended him, Neilson is also the only person in the municipality who is qualified to deal with fire. It is clear that the DA is worried that we are a government that is not moving."
Bobani said they would soon expose the DA’s corruption.