Carlo Petersen
THE country’s best-run city is struggling with employment equity as white men continue to dominate mid-level to senior positions in the DA-run Cape Town municipality.
Blacks are under-represented in five of the six occupational levels in the City’s staff profile, whereas whites are over-represented in the top three-levels, according to the City’s latest employment equity report.
“Our employment equity compliance can only be achieved as quickly as our natural rate of attrition takes place,” said Mayco member for corporate services and compliance Xanthea Limberg.
Limberg said the City is wholeheartedly committed to employment equity.
Figures show that coloured males make up 40% of the City’s workforce, with women, particularly blacks, poorly represented.
“The City invests over R100 million into our Workplace Skills Plan to build an internal pipeline of promotion that will in turn build our skills base from the bottom up.”
She explained that the City also invests significantly in an external skills development programme.
She said a coaching programme is in place to ensure that more blacks, particularly black women, are represented in mid-level to senior positions.
ANC caucus leader Xolani Sotashe said there was a “clear strategy” to get rid of black municipal managers since the DA took over in the province in 2009.
“We have a situation where the top three tiers of management are occupied by mostly white men. In situations where it has proven difficult for them to remove black workers, they have made an effort to make the working conditions uncomfortable for those black individuals.
“It’s clear that this is not a unicity. It is a city for the rich and not for the poor.”
South African Municipal Workers Union spokesperson Mikel Khumalo said it is of “great concern” that white people dominated management positions in the municipality. Last year, the City also failed to meet its equity targets.
It stated that while its employment equity levels were not where it wanted them to be, it was making progress, with Limberg acknowledging “more needs to be done”.