Durban – Disciplinary cases against eThekwini Municipality employees who continued to receive a salary while on special leave or suspension would be finalised by the end of next month.
If the cases are delayed further,
the municipality said the three assigned advisers would be held personally responsible.
A progress report on the backlog of disciplinary cases was presented to the city’s executive committee this week. It showed a welcome improvement.
The report stated that 162 cases had been resolved as at February 29 - of which 90 were formal hearings and 72 informal.
Cases have been categorised in terms of the Disciplinary Procedure Collective Agreement, which provides that less serious allegations that
would normally warrant a written warning would be dealt with via informal hearings.
Serious allegations, the report
read, should be dealt with via formal hearings.
The report found that the latest number of cases was an improvement on the backlog of 336 cases from October 31, of which 236 were formal hearings and 100 were informal.
There were still 174 outstanding cases to be finalised.
The acting deputy city manager for corporate and human resources, Kim Makhathini, said while there were a number of outstanding cases, the investigations and work had already been done and was awaiting closure.
The head of the Legal and Compliance Unit, Melusi Mhlongo, said a number of steps had been taken to resolve the backlog of disciplinary cases. These include rendering the disciplinary board more effective in order to clear the backlog.
Mhlongo said the unit was also
taking urgent steps in dealing with cases where employees had been on special leave or suspended for a lengthy period while receiving
a salary. He committed that these
cases would be finalised within the next month.
“If the case stalls, the three advisers will personally be held liable for the delays. These are just some of the additional steps we have taken to clear the backlog,” he said.
DA caucus leader in eThekwini, Nicole Graham, welcomed the report, saying she was pleased that there was some progress in the disciplinary action cases.
However, she questioned whether the municipality was enforcing
the anti-fraud and corruption policy, which states that “a brief and anonymised summary of the circumstances will be published in order
to send a deterrent message to
other employees”
The policy also states that there should be a recovery of costs from any employee found to be guilty, and that criminal charges should be opened against them.
“We have for a long time been suggesting ways that this process should be a lot more transparent without compromising its integrity.
“Currently, there is no way the public or councillors can play oversight to see that the policy is actually implemented.
“So, it’s nice to see the numbers come down, but beyond that we don’t actually know any detail, so it is very difficult to work from that basis,” Graham said.