Johannesburg - The Nelson Mandela Museum in Mthatha is being crippled by the continued appointment of acting CEOs and rampant failure to adhere to labour laws.
The institution, which houses gifts and awards Mandela received during his presidency, is also hamstrung with bloated management and some of its employees do not even have job descriptions.
Employees were also haphazardly placed and not properly remunerated.
An unprotected strike over salary negotiations dragged on for three weeks, resulting in the management awarding a 7% salary increase to all employees, including managers.
This was revealed in an arts and culture portfolio committee report which is being processed in
Parliament.
The report was compiled after the oversight committee visited the Eastern Cape-based museum in September last year.
The visit followed one conducted in November 2014 when the committee investigated the challenges faced by the institution.
The committee said the museum had not yet appointed a CEO.
“The continuous appointment of acting chief executive officers created instability and inconsistency within the organisation,” the committee said.
It also said it found that the museum did not adhere to labour laws.
“This was evident as the organisation continued to place staff in different positions without properly appointing them and changing their job descriptions - and those
employees were not properly remunerated for the change in their jobs titles,” it said.
The museum was found to have too many managers, resulting in a situation where there was one staff member per manager.
“The organisation has a staff complement of 25, of which 11 are employed as managers.”
The committee also found that there was no job grading and some staff members had no job descriptions at all.
“During the current oversight visit the committee found that the staff had not signed performance agreements and the performance assessments were not completed,” the committee said.
“The management continued to change the job descriptions of staff without properly remunerating them and staff were not trained for the new positions.”
The committee has recommended that appointment of the CEO be speeded up and that the museum adhere to labour laws.
“The institution should rework its organisational structure and do away with the bloated managerial positions.
“Job grading should be done as soon as possible and all employees should have job descriptions.”
The museum, based in Mthatha and with satellites at Qunu and Mvezo, was officially opened by Mandela in 2000.
The museum’s main attraction is the Bhunga Building in Mthatha, which houses Madiba’s gifts and awards.
But the committee says it noted that the museum included the Mvezo site in its advertising strategy as part of the Nelson Mandela Museum site.
“This was misleading as the Department of Arts and Culture only funded the Bhunga and Qunu sites.