Pretoria - Claims that at least 900 jobs at the City of Tshwane are on the line because of the restructuring plans are untrue, mayor Solly Msimanga says.
He rebuffed claims by the South African Municipal Workers Union on Monday that jobs would be lost in the city.
“I am not going to fire people just because I have inherited the administration. I am saying there must be a useful usage of municipal resources,” he told the Pretoria News.
The city was looking at all the contracts that were coming to end.
He said there were people at the mayoral office whose jobs were unknown, but they still drew salaries.
“The union should be happy that we are freeing money from posts that have been filled with people from whom we don’t know what we are getting as a city,” he said.
The city was hoping to reroute people to where they could be more effective.
The union claimed there were retrenchment on the cards after the DA’s federal executive apparently gave a directive to all mayors at DA-run municipalities to downsize staff.
Its regional secretary Mpho Tladinyane accused the DA of harbouring anti-worker plans that were likely to leave thousands of workers out of jobs.
He claimed the city would retrench more than 900 workers.
“As the largest trade union in local government we will oppose this move by the municipality. We are convinced that this plan is ill-conceived and ill-planned,” he said.
Pretoria News