Facing a critical staff shortage with 667 unfilled vacancies, the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality is working to address its recruitment backlog.
The positions, spread across various directorates, were originally scheduled to be filled between July and December 2024.
According to municipal staff regulations, municipalities are required to fill funded vacancies on the staff establishment — which shows approved jobs — within six months of a funded post becoming vacant.
The city employs 5,649 staff, excluding contract workers and political appointees.
A report by human resources director Chris Jamnda, tabled at a corporate services committee meeting on Tuesday, revealed that the metro was unable to adhere to the six-month recruitment period.
“It is up to the respective directorates to prioritise and identify critical budgeted positions by submitting the requisite recruitment notification to corporate services.
“In this regard, corporate services can only report on vacancies for which a fully completed recruitment notification has been received,” the report said.
From July 1 to December 31, the corporate services department filled 189 permanent vacancies in various directorates.
“The directorate acknowledges that positions may not always be filled within the regulated time frames due to various factors that are beyond the control of corporate services, which include a moratorium being placed on filling vacancies, selection panels not adhering to set time frames and selection or appointment disputes.”
The report listed 667 vacancies in different stages of the recruitment process with some posts needing to be shortlisted, interviews done and data captured, while others had been placed on hold.
The majority of the vacancies are in the budget and treasury, electricity and energy and infrastructure and engineering directorates.
The report also listed measures that had been taken to fast-track the recruitment process.
These include:
- Additional resources have been sourced to assist with the capturing of applications for posts in service delivery directorates;
- Recruitment processes for positions vacated by retiring employees are initiated six months before the retirement date;
- The recruitment and selection policy is in the final stages of being reviewed and aligned to the municipal staff regulations;
- Positions from task grade seven and above are advertised online; and
- A standard operating procedure for filling vacancies has been developed.
Two human resources practitioner vacancies were filled from December, allowing each directorate to have a dedicated HR practitioner to provide support during the process of filling vacancies.
Corporate services executive director Nosipho Xhego said the restructuring of the municipality had played a role in delaying recruitment.
“One of the bottlenecks we have encountered is that since the municipality underwent restructuring, we decided to put the filling of vacancies on hold so that the institution avoids appointing staff outside the staff establishment.
“However, due to the slow nature of the process, we decided to advertise vacancies that are critical to the current operations and service delivery projects.
“Another bottleneck we faced was an issue of staff shortage at human resources management services, but we have since filled all the HR practitioner positions.
“If you note, some of the status of the vacancies indicates ‘awaiting capturing’.
“With the increasing levels of unemployment in the metro, you find that thousands of people apply for a single general worker post and all those applications need to be captured.”
Xhego said the city had since broadened the online application system which automatically generated the master list and helped to avoid delays related to data capturing.
DA councillor Annette Lovemore said it was strange that the report indicated a standard operating procedure had been developed.
“It’s strange because we haven’t approved a recruitment and selection policy, which is supposed to come first.
“The standard operating procedure surely must encompass the application of equity targets, which we also haven’t done.
“So how do we develop this without these two important aspects?”
Lovemore said that at a public health committee meeting last week, acting city manager Sizwe Mvunelwa responded to a question about why it took so long to fill vacancies.
“Jamnda didn’t agree with this, but Mvunelwa told the committee that our HR office is not advertising the correct requirements of positions according to the municipal staff regulations in almost every position except for senior managers.
“He showed an example, and I will paraphrase based on my recollection, that if the city required a code 14 driver, the post will go out with a code 8 licence minimum requirement and this is unacceptable.”
Xhego said the standard operating procedure could only be official once certain processes had been finalised.
“On the matter of noncompliance with the municipal staff regulations, I have issued a circular to staff and management that indicates that irrespective of a position having an [incorrect] job description, if it’s ... in line with the municipal staff regulations and its competencies we will ensure that it is implemented.”
The Herald
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