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The Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Richard Baloyi must take steps to prevent the current scramble to appoint dubious municipal staff before regulations regarding the appointment of Municipal Managers and Section 56 managers take effect in July.

Draft regulations on the appointment of Municipal Managers and Section 56 managers were tabled and discussed in the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs last week .

These regulations seek to give effect to the Local Government Municipal Systems Amendment Act passed by Parliament last year and sets out the requirements in terms of education, experience and skills for the appointment of municipal managers and senior officials.

Importantly it also sets out the categories of misconduct which would prohibit, for specified terms, the employment or reemployment of municipal officials found guilty of financial misconduct, corruption, fraud, dishonesty, discrimination and sexual harassment.

The gap created between the promulgation of the legislation and the finalisation of the regulations is proving problematic.

If local government is to work effectively then it is essential that rogue officials are not employed in municipal administrations.

Unfortunately there appears to be a rush of appointments in municipal managerial positions before the regulations take effect in July. This can be evidenced by:
The appointment of Mr Lonwabo Ngoqo as the Municipal Manager in the Sundays River Valley municipality after being dismissed from the Bitou municipality on four charges of serious financial misconduct amounting to some R26 million; and
The recent employment of Mr George Mthiyane by the Council of Emalahleni in Mpumalanga. Mr Mthiyane who was formerly employed as a manager in the Dr JS Moroka Municipality, in Siyabuswa, Mpumalanga where he was suspended and later resigned after being charged with sexual harassment and unauthorised and fruitless expenditure. He was then deployed to the Naledi municipality in Vryburg, but was also suspended from there amid allegations that he had inflated a traffic department tender by some R200 000 without following appropriate procedure.

These are but two examples of a far wider problem of the redeployment of serial rogue officials to different municipalities.

This is why these regulations are so essential.

It must, however, be stressed that the legislation and the regulations will be meaningless if positions are all filled by serial offenders prior to the enactment of the regulations. This problem will be exacerbated if these offenders are placed in permanent positions from which they cannot be removed without great difficulty.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that if Minister Baloyi is serious about weeding out the rotten apples from the system then he needs to act now. We believe that the Minister should take the following steps:

1. Ensure that a circular is sent to all municipal councils across the country informing them of the pending regulations and urging caution in proceeding with appointments until the regulations are gazetted;
2. Exercise vigorous oversight of appointment processes for municipal managers and senior municipal staff in the run-up to the implementation of the regulations.
3. Undertake a review of the employment of all municipal managers or senior staff who have previously been found guilty of financial misconduct, dishonesty, fraud, discrimination and sexual harassment.

Failure to do so will mean that a crop of rogue municipal officials will remain in senior positions where they will no doubt continue to hamper the implementation of good, clean and accountable local government.