MM candidate ‘focused’ on water woes
The acting MM who served as a General Manager for Corporate Services, said being an HR manager, it is easy for people to assume that it is HR who dismisses workers, when HR only advises on the matters of law.
Ugu’s acting municipal manager (MM), Vela Mazibuko has sworn that should he be appointed as the municipal manager, the issue of workers being dismissed in numbers will never happen again.
Mazibuko was speaking to Fever after an opinion piece was published on the appointment of an Ugu municipal manager.
He said after the reinstatement of the dismissed workers, the attitude of the labour unions and municipal management changed, saying that the priority is to now give Ugu residents water.
Mazibuko described the dismissal of Ugu workers in 2019 and 2020 as abnormal, saying that some calls can only be made by people in charge, while you are in a position of only advising.
The acting MM who served as a General Manager for Corporate Services, said being an HR manager, it is easy for people to assume that it is HR who dismisses workers, when HR only advises on the matters of law.
He added so far, he has managed matters of negotiations between unions and management where they must engage, agree to disagree and create a space where the unions can come and criticise management across the table.
“Because unions will resort to using social media and other platforms to air their grievances because we are depriving them a table, these unions have a responsibility to represent the workers and if employees are not represented, you will fool yourself and say there is labour peace because there is no one who can talk on behalf of the workers,” he said.
Mazibuko, who was born in Magog under Umzumbe joined Ugu in 2007 and has worked as the municipality’s HR manager for over 10 years.
His qualifications include a Masters in Public Administration.
He said that he started pouring his heart into water issues after being appointed as the chairperson of the water war room by Minister Senzo Mchunu through former Ugu mayor, Phumlile Mthiyane.
“We need to reach a high level of communication like Eskom. I recently introduced an initiative where the municipality cleans the database of the customers’ cell numbers so that when there is no water, the group of customers will receive messages stating why there is no water and the estimated time frame for restoration, and once it has been restored the customers are notified,” he said, adding that communication about water outages to customers and a change in attitude when it comes to some of their workers, can assist the municipality greatly.
He added that although he was humbled by Inkosi Sazi Ndwalane’s remarks on him being appointed as MM, should he not get the position, he will always be grateful to the municipality, the ruling party and the opposition parties for the opportunity.
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