/ 15 September 2016

Herman Mashaba agrees to pay City of Jo’burg’s ANC deployees to stay at home

Herman Mashaba of the Democratic Alliance is Johannesburg's new mayor.
Herman Mashaba of the Democratic Alliance is Johannesburg's new mayor.

Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba is paying more than 30 contractual staff members to stay at home for four months because they were appointed by the previous ANC regime. This week, Mashaba personally collected a memorandum from disgruntled Democratic Alliance supporters during the city’s first inaugural council sitting because he did not want to use stakeholder management advisers appointed by former mayor Parks Tau.

The offer to contract workers states that these appointees will be paid out their salaries for the remaining three months and an additional month for other allowances and taxes. But it does not include city manager Trevor Fowler, whose term was this week extended until December.

The Mail & Guardian is in possession of the letter to the staff, in which they are instructed to choose between the early settlement payout of their contracts and redeployment to other departments. But no alternative positions have been made available for the past two weeks and employees are understood to be clocking in and leaving their offices as early as 10am.

“Many of the staff don’t know what to do. There’s no work or instructions being given to them. They come to work early and leave at 10am, because nothing is happening. The mood is bad,” said a senior employee affected by the shake-up, who asked to remain anonymous.

The affected staff were appointed to 15 positions in the mayor’s office, including as political adviser, chief of staff, strategic adviser, spokesperson, speech writer, priority projects adviser, sustainability advisers and stakeholder management advisers. The other 10 positions are for political advisers and spokespersons for the mayoral committee members and 15 employees.

Mashaba is conducting an overhaul of the staff in his office and has already appointed a new chief of staff, Michael Beaumont, and spokesperson, Tony Taverna-Turisan, who both relocated from the City of Cape Town after the elections. The mayor’s office confirmed he sent the letter and said the offer was made after consultation with Tau’s former chief of staff, Anthony Selepe.

Taverna-Turisan told the Mail & Guardian: “These are political appointments. The contracts are linked to the term of office of the mayor or MMC, so in no way were these permanent employees of the City. On arrival we were informed of a transition period of three months and through bona fide negotiations they requested the offer themselves. Obviously this is a very difficult position because a lot of them are ANC members and it’s difficult to keep them in office.”

Although the DA seems ready to fill these positions from within its own ranks, other MMCs in the coalition council appear less hostile towards the transitional staff .“There are mixed feelings from the MMCs. There are some that say let the [political advisers or spokespersons] continue because we don’t know the system. Others toe the line of the political principals and say we need a skills audit. Some say these advisers are from the ANC. We can’t work with them,” the source said.

The uncertainty in Mashaba’s office has already affected service delivery. This was evident when the mayor personally accepted the memorandum from his party’s supporters who said they had not been paid for campaigning during the elections. 

Although the mayor is unable to work with the ANC in council, this week he handed out title deeds in Soweto, which had been negotiated and finalised by the previous ANC council.

With the key positions in the mayor’s office in limbo, instructions cannot be sent to MMCs and other departments. But the DA insists the decision to pay out the workers was taken in good faith.

“It offered the mayor a chance to start staffing his office. There’s no negativity and this is not designed to push anyone out office,” Taverna-Turisan said.