Adrienne Carlisle, Daily Dispatch

Makana municipality knowingly appointed a top official to her job without the requisite qualifications required by law and then, two years into her contract, tried to fire her because she lacked the same certification.

The municipality’s engineering and infrastructure director, Asanda Gidana, has won her SA Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) arbitration dispute against the municipality which was ruled to have acted “substantially unfairly”in firing her.

The municipality was ordered to pay her R635,000 compensation. Gidana got the top job in 2021 on a five-year fixed term contract, earning a basic salary of R1.3m annually, despite the municipality knowing she lacked the legally required competency certification.

It turned our from the arbitration award that the municipality regularly appoints officials to their jobs without this certificationm and then pays for the “expensive” long-term training for them to get it.

In the case of Gidana, the municipality said at the arbitration it faced financial challenges and the 2019 “intake” of officials was still attending the training course.

It said Gidana was to have been in the next group as they preferred to sign up in groups as they then received a discount.

SALGBC panellist Mandlenkosi Mini said the evidence showed that  Gidana was not afforded the opportunity to attain the required certificate, and therefore the noncompliance with regulations was the municipality’s fault and not her own. Though the municipality said she should have taken steps to acquire it on her oww, at her own expense, the arbitrator said this would mean she was treated differently to every other employee in the same situation.

The second charge Mini said Gidana had faced was that in July 2022 she facilitated “pre-payment” to a service provider of R2.6m for a pump “without conducting due diligence”.

Pre-payments for goods has reportedly been forbidden by the chief financial officer Nomfundo Ntsangani. The municipality faced two problems on this charge.

The first was that both the chief financial officer (CFO) and the municipal manager, Pumemele Kate, had also signed off on the payment.

“The CFO signed the authorisaiton of the payment. One would have thought she would have interrogated the payment as she was the one who instructed that prepayments were not permissible,” Mini said.

The second was that, on the municipality’s own version, the service level agreement signed with the service provider by the municipality required partial payment up front for goods and services.

It included installation of the pump and ensuring that it worked.

It was established that payment was a “progressive payment”for services rather than a pre-payment.

Mini found that Gidana’s dismissal was substantively unfair and ordered that Makana pay her six months’ salary compensation of R635,000.

Makana municipal spokesperson Anele Mjekula said the municipality could not comment on the arbitraiton until it had been considered by the next council meeting, which was scheduled for Wednesday, December 11.

Public Servie Accountability Monitor director, Jay Kruuse called on the auditor-general to investigate whether the debacle amounted to fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Kruuse said the matter required Makana council to take steps against the parties implicated.

“When will Makana municipality stop appointing staff without required qualifications?” Kruuse asked.

“Senior management’s conduct in doing so begs the question as to how many other staff have been appointed without the required qualifications and competency.”

He said the reference in the arbitration report to a group of staff that had been trying to get their certificate of competency since 2019 also caused concern that they were taking time away from their duties to achieve competency that they should have had when appointed.

“We need competent staff at their desks doing the job they are paid to do. The public is underserved and the evidence is overwhelming that this municipality is dysfunctional.”

Makana municipality recently warned residents to boil their tap wateras there were high levels of ecoli in it.

Many residents were quick to sarcastically comment on social media platforms that they had been without water for weeks on end, so boiling it was not an option.

The auditor-general recently also issued the municipality with its fifth audit disclaimer, which means the documents submitted to the AG’s office were of such a poor standard that she could not complete the audit.