Pleading confidentiality for not revealing what Monday’s full council meeting will discuss regarding the continued tenure of Cape Town’s city manager, mayor Helen Zille on Friday ruled out a mooted R1-million golden handshake.
”This multi-party government is saying we are drawing the line at the public purse being used as a piggy bank for golden handshakes. Especially pre-arranged and pre-engineered golden handshakes, because Dr [Wallace] Mgoqi never had any intention of working with us from the beginning. And the public do not want their money used in that kind of cavalier fashion,” Zille told a media briefing on negotiations surrounding Mgoqi’s contract.
Former African National Congress mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo extended Mgoqi’s contract by one year, but the legality of the contract is now being contested by the Democratic Alliance-led city.
Zille said that during the past few weeks of negotiations it was clear that Mgoqi’s ”primary interest” was securing the golden handshake, comprising, among other benefits, a full nine months’ pay plus salary increase, amounting to over R700 000 and a performance bonus of R250 000.
Zille said the city had offered Mgoqi a final offer of a new three-month contract starting from the date his previous contract expired, February 28 this year, but this was turned down. She said Mgoqi, with whom relations had irretrievably broken down, indicated that he was prepared to go to the Constitutional Court to try to enforce his contract.
Zille resisted parallels between Mgoqi’s situation and the payouts granted to DA appointees during its previous reign in the city, saying there were different circumstances.
”Those people had contracts still to run. Valid, legal contracts still to run. Dr Mgoqi’s situation is that his legal contract ended on 28th February, the day before the [municipal] election.”
Zille steadfastly denied the streamlining of scores of staff, including reducing personnel in the mayor’s and deputy mayor’s offices from 27 to 12, was part of a political purge, but rather getting rid of a gravy train de luxe.
”Let me be clear. These contracts were about to expire. We will not be purging any permanent staff or management.”
Zille said that the city administration would not tolerate officials deliberately blocking decisions, as Mgoqi had done.
Zille said the vast majority of city employees, including those who served on Mfeketo’s mayoral executive, were willing to work for the city’s success.
In reference to the purging of former employees, Zille said during the ANC’s last term some 100 senior city employees, representing decades of collective experience, were paid millions to leave.
”Their loss is incalculable for the skills base of this city and we are experiencing it everyday. That is the scandal, R80-million spent on getting rid of people whose skills are desperately needed … It’s as big a scandal, for example, as the voluntary severance packages in schools which stripped education of so many skills and experience at the cost of billions of rands, and the schools system hasn’t recovered,” said Zille. — Sapa