Lawyers for the 120 former ANC political staff members and the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) have failed to meet deadlines to review the City of Joburg’s decision to end their working contract on April 30.
This was revealed by the City of Joburg’s acting municipal manager, Mesuli Mlandu, when he briefed the media along with MMC for corporate and shared services Leah Knott at the mayor's office on Friday.
Mlandu said Samwu had asked for a meeting to discuss the matter on Wednesday, but they failed to show. The lawyers for the political staff also requested a meeting for 1pm on Friday, but they too failed to turn up.
“There is no one who made an application to the Speaker of council to review. There is no party that approached the council for it to review that decision. We were not even served with court papers about the matters.
“It was on that basis that I gave a directive to the human resources to go ahead with the notices; if I failed I would have exposed myself to a disciplinary action by the council,” Mlandu maintained.
He said the City of Joburg would start placing adverts for political posts in various newspapers and online media to allow people to apply, including the 120 former ANC staffers.
Knott said the ANC had failed to defend the decision of their former mayoral committee to convert the fixed-term contracts of the political staff into permanent contracts.
“They knew the agenda of the council on February 21, but they failed to come and defend that decision. They were aware that it was unlawful,” Knott said
She further said: “This is about righting the wrong of an unlawful decision taken by the previous mayoral committee of the ANC-led government, which was not about prioritising service delivery or protecting vulnerable employees: it was about cadre deployment at the expense of residents.
“R80 million a year to be precise. Let me be clear on what we mean by political employees: every political head of government, from mayors to MMCs, presidents and ministers, to speakers and party caucuses within legislatures, require political staff to advise and run their offices.
“All of these employees across every sphere of government are employed on fixed-term contracts linked to the term of office of their politician. If the politician goes – they go,” she said.
Knott said elections changed the composition of legislatures, saying "yesterday you had 120 seats and could employ a proportional number of staff to support them; today you have 90 seats and the proportion of staff changes”.
Political Bureau