Ed's note: This story has been updated
Cape Town - On Thursday, new mayor Dan Plato will seek the city council’s approval for a revised mayoral committee setup, with an executive director for each. Each executive director comes with an annual salary of between R2.7 million and R3m.
Plato is overhauling the City’s Organisational Development Transformation Plan (ODTP) introduced by previous mayor Patricia de Lille.
Through this, he wants the position of Melissa Whitehead, former transport and urban development commissioner who was suspended for corruption, to be re-designated.
The new structure would consist of city manager Lungelo Mbandazayo and 11 executive director positions.
The new structure would necessitate the creation of a human settlements directorate.
Previously, this department was part of the transport and urban development directorate.
“The delivery of housing opportunities in well-located areas requires dedicated structural support and a clearer strategic and operational link between informal settlement upgrade, backyard services, formal housing delivery and enhanced housing provision through the market.
"It is proposed that these functions be consolidated within a portfolio with dedicated senior management and organisational structure,” Plato said.
The new human settlements directorate would be guided by a strategic framework enabling spatial transformation, he added.
Plato said they were redesigning informal settlements, and water and waste services.
“The drought placed additional strategic emphasis and operational demand on the City’s water and sanitation services by highlighting challenges and required actions, many of which are new, complex and require long-term, strategic planning to address,” he noted.
Plato said the lessons learnt during the ODTP's implementation indicated that a less complex directorate structure would allow for more effective management.
The transport and urban development authority would be renamed Transport because it was too large and complex to be managed as a single directorate.
“There is also a need to address the duplication of corporate functions created in the TDA (Transport and Urban Development Authority), acknowledge that the City is facing manifold and operationally complex transport challenges, as well as revive the core municipal function of town and district planning in the City (in another directorate),” Plato said.
Housing-related functions would be moved to the human settlements directorate, while finance components within the TDA would be moved to the finance directorate.
Duplicated functions such as communications in the TDA would be moved to directorates which already provide such services at a corporate level or to a directorate where additional capacity was needed.
A centralised spatial planning and environment directorate would also be established.