The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality is aiming to submit an item for the development of a new marketing unit within the municipality to the council during its second meeting of the year.
This follows a decision by the council in December to absorb some of the tourism functions carried out by Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism.
On Friday, economic development, agriculture and tourism executive director Anele Qaba said they would submit an item for council to approve indicating the budget implications of adding the unit and changing the organogram of his department to add the marketing function.
“The exercise we’re doing right now is looking at the organogram, job descriptions in line with the organogram and cost implications of the structure, but we will liaise with budget and treasury and corporate services in terms of structure and job description.
“There will also be job evaluations that need to be done and once those processes are done, we’ll have to grade those positions in terms of salaries,” Qaba said.
Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism had recently appointed a new CEO, Glenton de Kock, who started work on September 1 2018.
Asked if the municipality would pay De Kock out or absorb him into the new unit, Qaba said he could not comment on that because a decision on what to do with De Kock and the rest of the staff at the tourism body rested with the board.
“Glenton and the structures of NMBT are not a responsibility of the metro. Possibly paying Glenton out is a decision of the board so the board will have to decide what to do.
“But as the MMC [member of the mayoral committee Queenie Pink] had previously said, we cannot be reckless. She made it clear we’d consider those who are competent and meet the requirements but that goes through all human resources channels.
“The structure, for example, will likely have a marketing manager, so we’ll say these are the positions we have and those who are competent and meet the requirements must apply and that’s it.
“Our role is to advertise and give them an opportunity to apply and consider them as we do the recruitment for the internal staff,” Qaba said.