The City of Cape Town’s municipal council has revoked former Mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo’s decision to extend city manager Wallace Mgoqi’s contract for a year, meaning that Mgoqi is no longer the city manager for Cape Town, new Mayor Helen Zille said in a statement on Monday.
Mgoqi has been accused by Zille, a member of the opposition Democratic Alliance, and members of the council of refusing to implement new policies agreed by the council and purposefully seeking dismissal with a ”golden handshake”.
The city’s multi-party government had chosen Achmat Ebrahim from the Ikwezi team to take up the position of acting city manager in Mgoqi’s stead, Zille revealed.
Ebrahim has over 20 years of experience in the city council and has an extensive knowledge of local government affairs. He has served as the executive director of community services and is currently the executive director for the city secretariat.
Mfeketo had extended Mgoqi’s contract by one year, but the legality of the contract was contested by the DA-led city.
On Friday Zille had 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.
She 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 that 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 and I-Net Bridge