Jaspreet Kindra
Director General of Local Government Zam Titus was sidelined by his minister, Sydney Mufamadi, who believed he lacked the “strategic vision” to steer the department.
Departmental and other sources confirmed Titus’s five-year contract, which expired last month, was not renewed because Mufamadi is seeking a director general from outside the department to guide it through the daunting complexities of local government transformation. None of Titus’s three deputies is said to be in the running.
Titus’s appointment as Mufamadi’s special adviser is widely seen as a face-saving device. The director general’s post was advertised two weeks ago. Asked to comment, Titus referred all queries to the minister. Mufamadi’s spokesperson, Brent Simons, emphasised that Titus had been retained in the ministry.
Media reports last week said Titus was “one of the most efficient and hard-working department heads” in government, that his retention as an adviser was “a significant boost” and that his move from the director general’s post was “by mutual agreement”.
However, government insiders said his strengths lay in the areas of legal drafting and negotiation and that he was not a local government specialist. “It is not that Titus is not a capable man he is just not the right man for the job,” said a source.
A former lawyer, Titus virtually ran the Transkei homeland under Bantu Holomisa and led the Transkei delegation at the Kempton Park constitutional talks.
The sources said initiatives which should have got under way after new municipal structures came into being had failed to take off. They cited the delay in transferring the responsibility for electricity supply from local councils to the district councils, and the failure to drive public-private partnerships in municipalities, as being among Mufamadi’s irritants.
Mufamadi came to provincial and local government from the safety and security portfolio in 1999. He inherited Titus, who had already served two years of his contract under Valli Moosa.
Sources said Mufamadi had come to grips with the complexities of his portfolio, which had to spearhead one of the most ambitious transformation projects yet undertaken in South Africa.
He had increasingly come to realise that his department and its head lacked the capacity and the vision to implement his policy decisions.
To compensate for under-capacity, he recently hired two local government specialists, former Cape Town metro manager Andrew Boraine and Kevin Allen, as ministerial advisers.
The move had not been well received by the department. Following Mufamadi’s appointment of an advisory panel under former Democratic Party luminary Peter Leon, the postings sparked claims of a “white cabal”.
The three deputy directors general in the department, Godfrey Mokate, Elroy Africa and Jackie Manche, are also seen to lack the skills required for the director general’s job. A chief director, Craig Clerihew, has been appointed acting head.
Sources said Mufamadi is looking for “someone fresh” from outside the department who was “a high-profile strategist and a visionary”.
“Administrative skills can be consolidated around the new director general,” said a source. Mufamadi is expected to draw up a shortlist in the next two weeks.