It seems to have been a long time coming, but finally, it’s here. Following the amendment of the Municipal Systems Act in 2011, regulations providing for the appointment and conditions of employment for senior managers in municipalities were published in the Government Gazette last week.
This paves the way of new levels of competence expected from municipal managers and its senior personnel.
The Regulations provide for senior managers (those entrusted with the responsibility of managing municipalities) to have the relevant skills, competencies, expertise and qualifications before they are appointed into such positions.
More specifically, the regulations concerning the appointment of senior managers employed by municipalities aim to turn these managers into Service-Deliverers par excellence.
The objective of the regulations is to greatly increase competency levels across the 278 municipalities that occupy South Africa’s local government landscape, with the goal to create a career path in local public administration, governed by the values and principles enshrined in Chapter 10 of the Constitution.
The new regulations aim to standardise human resource practices across the land; ensure that municipalities recruit and retain suitably qualified personnel, particularly managers with scarce skills.
In expectation of the new regulations, the Tshwane metro already sent several of its senior management last year to various institutions, among which also the University of Pretoria, to qualify themselves in time and comply for the posts they are currently employed in.
The new regulations are designed to lay the foundation upon which municipalities can build the capacity to perform their work more productively, particularly in the delivery of services.
The regulations cover all contingencies to do with management appointments, including: principles to inform the development of staff establishments; regulating the process of appointing senior managers; prescribing minimum levels of skills, expertise, competencies and qualifications for senior managers. It also stresses the procedures for the recruitment, selection and appointment of senior managers (such as the principles of recruitment; advertising; the composition of a selection panel, the process of screening of candidates; interviews; re-employment of dismissed persons).
The Regulations place a 10-year ban, on senior managers who were dismissed for financial misconduct, fraud or corruption, from re-employment in any municipality. Lesser acts of misconduct are liable to banning decrees ranging between 2 and 5 years for, amongst others, breaching the Code of Conduct for Municipal Staff Members.
A very positive aspect of the new regulations is that The Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs is empowered to set limits to the salaries of senior managers. Whilst existing contracts will be honoured, all new entrants will be subject to new ceilings relating to the remuneration that they will receive.
