Bonus time for Durban bosses

Durban City Manager S'bu Sithole and his deputy city managers all received bonuses for the 2013/14 financial year, totalling around R760 000. Picture: Sibusiso Ndlovu/The Mercury

Durban City Manager S'bu Sithole and his deputy city managers all received bonuses for the 2013/14 financial year, totalling around R760 000. Picture: Sibusiso Ndlovu/The Mercury

Published Feb 3, 2016

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Durban - eThekwini’s most senior officials’ pockets have just got fatter. Last week, the municipality approved the executive’s annual bonus for the 2013/14 financial year.

Rumblings from the aggrieved opposition – especially the DA – about their “sub-par” performance did not deter the council from approving the bonuses, amounting to about R760 000.

The bonuses are in the wake of the city’s achievement last year of its first clean audit since its inception, 16 years ago. It received an unqualified audit in the 2013/14 year.

The decision to reward the officials is deemed confidential, but a document detailing the resolution was leaked to The Mercury this week.

“The annual performance assessments … were undertaken by evaluation panels,” the report read. City manager S’bu Sithole was evaluated in December last year. His deputies in August.

The deputy city managers are chief financial officer Krish Kumar, Sipho Cele (governance), Musa Gumede (community and emergency services) and Dumisile Nene (corporate and human resources). Naledi Moyo, who left her deputy city manager post for an economic development and planning post six months into her five-year contract, will also receive a bonus.

Sithole, according to the city’s medium-term revenue and expenditure framework: 2015/16 to 2017/18, will receive R188 777; Cele and Kumar will each get R98 625; Moyo and Gumede will receive R128 074 each; and Nene’s R117 377 bonus was also approved.

The Mercury understands that the scores of each official, contained in the document, were amended by the executive council. The scores are out of five.

According to the document, Sithole had initially scored 3.618, but that was amended to 4. Kumar’s score was decreased from 4.2 to 3.8, Gumede’s from 3.7 to 3.5. Cele’s and Nene’s scores were increased from 3.34 and 3 to 3.5 and 3.3, respectively.

The performance bonuses are in addition to the millions of rands in salaries the officials earn.

The report before the council last week said the bonuses were in accordance with Regulation 32 of the Local Government Act.

According to the regulation, “a performance bonus, based on affordability, may be paid” to the municipal manager and his deputies after the annual report for the financial year under review has been tabled and adopted and their performance has been reviewed.

Three city councillors, who asked that their identities not to be revealed, said the “initial scores would have been difficult to accept”. The Mercury understands that the DA rejected the awarding of bonuses, arguing that the officials did not deserve them.

The party refused to be drawn on the matter, saying it was discussed “confidentially”.

A councillor sympathetic to the officials said the executives deserved their performance bonuses, “especially after the municipality received its first clean audit”.

A second councillor, who asked not to be identified, said some of the officials did not deserve the bonuses, “especially Sithole and Krish Kumar”.

S’bu Sithole and his deputies are paid bonuses 18 months after the end of a financial year because of the rigorous auditing and evaluation processes.

Former eThekwini city manager Michael Sutcliffe said: ‘The way the system works is that there is a rating that is given from 1-5.’

He said the financial year began on July 1, once the budget had been approved, which was usually in April.

’Once that is done, a service delivery plan has to be finalised before the start of a financial year. Out of that service plan is also the performance contracts and agreements. The performance contract itself is standard, but agreements change every year – agreements are about targets set.’

The contract, he said, was usually divided into four or five areas.

‘You get scored out of five in each of these sections. Usually if you get an overall score of three, it means you have achieved everything you were meant to achieve. That is how it used to be when I was there.’

From there, he said, ‘I used to develop a formula for everyone except myself, that would say everyone who gets four and above – you get X percentage. The percentage ranged between 4% and 14% (of total salary remuneration) maximum. It can vary every year.

’When I was there I used to make recommendations for all my deputies. I don’t know what happens now.’

The auditing of the financial year took about six months.

‘The public consultation of the audit report takes about another six months,’ he said.

The performance assessments usually followed that entire process.

The Mercury

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