One of the most important interventions in the administration of a Municipality is the alignment of the operations with the strategic objectives of its leadership. The Municipal Systems Act requires, amongst others, that a staff establishment review be conducted within a specific period after the election of a new municipal Council.
The objective of this Staff Establishment Plan and Institutional Review is to enhance organisational effectiveness and performance, cut operational costs, eliminate duplications and improve service delivery and customer satisfaction levels. Further, in February this year, the City Council resolved to re-integrate all municipal entities as departments within the City, with this decision having been incorporated into the objectives of the Staff Establishment and Institutional Review process to be undertaken.
The Staff Establishment Plan and Institutional Review Report placed before Council last week presented a new structure that streamlines the activities of the City, through the introduction of a more robust and effective management structure reporting into the City Manager. Mayor Mashaba highlighted the challenge of having 38 (thirty-eight) senior personnel reporting into the City Manager, a legacy of the previous regime, presented an untenable situation which was not conducive to effective governance, accountability and service delivery. The new structure creates 12 senior personnel, in a reconfigured reporting structure, with the following areas of focus:
• Infrastructure Services – service delivery functions of Basic Services and Mobility (Transport);
• Social Services – activities to support the social needs of the people;
• Economic Development – activities to inject economic activity;
• Core Functions – such as regulatory approvals, policy and compliance;
• Transversal and Administration Functions – functions that support the City’s internal operations.
A major structural change is the introduction and implementation of “last mile of service” or “de-concentration” functions aimed to improve service delivery at a regional level. Mayor Mashaba was emphatic in his undertaking that the citizens are entitled to quick responsiveness in the delivery of services. The current structure represented a silo approach, whereby entities and departments operated in isolation and not in unison towards a common service delivery purpose. The new structure will make regionally based heads accountable for the uptime of the City’s basic services, irrespective of which department or utility the issue may relate to. The regional offices would become effective one-stop shops for citizen engagement, without citizens having to be shunted from entity to entity.
Mayor Mashaba also wishes to convey his sincerest intention in ensuring the implementation of the project within an ambitious, yet achievable, timeline of 18 months, at the same time noting that he and his team are not naïve to the complexity, scale nor the enormity of the task ahead. He also assures the stakeholders of the City, including its own personnel that “No retrenchments will happen. Whilst we do expect redundancies to emerge from the re-design of the structure and the re-integration of the City’s entities, we shall ensure that such staff are meaningfully and sustainably redeployed.”
Mayor Mashaba concluded that: “With the overwhelming majority vote in support of the Staff Establishment Plan and Institutional Review, achieved through the support and buy-in of coalition partners and our strategic partners the EFF, we are humbled by the faith and trust placed in the Executive to improve service delivery and accountability to our citizens and visitors.”
As MMC responsible for the City’s Corporate and Shared Services, I would like to further assure employees of the City that this process will be carried out for the best interest of our constitutional mandate as a City, and, would like to encourage employees to be cooperative during this process. This institutional review will bring about the best outcomes for the City as a whole to which we will all be custodians of.
The City will be engaging with stakeholders at all levels, to ensure a transparent, equitable and fair transition process to implementing the new organisational structure. It is our wish as a new administration to re-iterate our commitment of making Johannesburg an effective, sustainable and safe city, free from corruption.