Ballito resident Tony Kruger writes:

Thank you for your report on the KDM draft budget presentation by the mayor (‘Residents grill KDM on power and financial woes‘, Courier, May 1), which covered the proceedings well. I would like to add a further point.

One of the community organisations, the KwaDukuza Residents Forum, noted how, over 20 years, the municipality’s performance has gone from showing a 30% profit on electricity revenue to a loss today. The forum pointed out that, despite this, office bearers responsible for electricity are still in their jobs and, more so, have even enjoyed year-end bonuses.

In reply, the municipality acknowledged electricity losses are a serious problem which has grown over the years and, although it is a main focus area, the situation cannot be turned around overnight. Fair enough, but what I found important and revealing is that the meeting was told the municipality undertakes staff performance evaluations. A “balanced scorecard” evaluation method, a well tried-and-tested methodology, is in use. The success of the method lies in identifying the job’s key measurement criteria and then assigning a suitable weighting to each criterion.

Now, if I understood correctly, the meeting was told it is possible that, even if an official obtains a low performance score in the core areas of his or her job, the overall score can be improved in other, non-core areas. Therefore, the end result can be bonuses being obtained despite poor or non-performance in core, ie critical, responsibility areas. Surely this should not happen?

What I found important is that the municipality stated that the public can actually give input into the make-up of the scorecard. Further, it was said that the public even has a legal right to do so. Also, apparently there is time, as performance assessments only take place at year-end.

So, given that the provision of reliable, cost-effective electricity is only as good as the performance of the municipal officials in charge, I really do hope the several resident associations present at the meeting join together to take advantage of the mayor’s open offer and approach KDM to undertake a review of the make-up of the current balanced scorecard, and ensure the evaluation is focused correctly on the core deliverables of officials.