City boss Thembinkosi Myalato has warned Makana officials that from now on, municipal affairs will be conducted by the book – starting with how they do their jobs.
City boss Thembinkosi Myalato has warned Makana officials that from now on, municipal affairs will be conducted by the book – starting with how they do their jobs.
The acting municipal manager has told Makana directors and managers to ask themselves if they truly deserve their salaries, following the revelation that senior management escaped the performance review process in the 2011/2012 financial year.
According to the recent draft annual performance report, this was because of lack of capacity, along with a lack of commitment from the managers to the process. This was despite the fact that performance reviews had been identified as a priority in the past two financial years.
Pressed on this, Myalato said he couldn't comment on what had happened before his time (he began working at the municipality as the director of technical and infrastructural services earlier this year, shortly before the financial year ended in June).
But he did say next year would be different. "We are enforcing, as directors, the monitoring and evaluation. We do things by the book. I always ask my staff to put themselves in front of the mirror and see if they are doing their work according to the salary they are getting."
Myalato also plans to put the an end to the relaxed attitude within municipal staff. "We are going to change that mentality, we have systems in place to monitor if people are doing their jobs according to their contracts," he said.
When directors and senior managers sign employment contracts at the municipality they sign an agreement that states they will receive a bonus in proportion to their performance. They don't get 13th cheques, but Myalato said he couldn't divulge more information about the two financial years in which the municipality had failed to do performance reviews.
The recent report does, however, reveal that Makana municipality asked Cacadu District Municipality for help with the performance reviews. Makana integrated development planning manager Mzolisi Pasiya confirmed last week that they'd run out of time to conduct the reviews. "We tried to organise dates for the reviews, but because of the busy schedule for the directors they were not done," Pasiya said.
He said he was responsible for organising those meetings. "We have asked for assistance from Cacadu municipality in the form of funding and they have agreed to help us," he said.
That money will go to implementing and training managers to use an automated reviewing system. The reviews were previously done manually, Pasiya said. Another plan to improve the system, he said, was to motivate employees to work harder by offering non-financial incentives, such as gifts.
Pasiya confirmed that because no performance reviews were done, no performance bonuses have been awarded in the past two years.
