The controversial and unprecedented move in 2021 by the Buffalo City Metro council to permanently absorb more than 100 political appointees, despite the dissenting voices of opposition parties, has come back to bite.
In a bid to prevent the city from firing him from his lucrative post, two years after the "absorption", one of the appointees has dragged the city to the bargaining council and won.
The city had dismissed the appointee due to “operational requirements”.
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The former high-ranking manager in the BCM mayor’s office was sacked in November 2023.
He took the matter to the SA Local Government Bargaining Council, which found his dismissal was “substantively and procedurally unfair”, and awarded him a settlement of R2.1m.
The matter is now the subject of a court battle as the city is refusing to pay the settlement.
The settlement award is the equivalent of 12 month’s pay, which works out to a salary of R178,000 a month.
The bargaining council did, however, find his reinstatement would not be feasible as someone had since been appointed to his former position.
The city is now appealing against the settlement award in the labour court, on a date yet to be set.
This means that in addition to the contested R2m settlement, the city will incur further legal expenses should it lose its appeal.
The appointee cannot be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
In November 2021, the terms of a number of the city’s political principals were about to lapse.
This meant 106 metro political appointees, whose terms of office were aligned to those of their political principals, would ordinarily have lost their jobs too.
But the SA Municipal Workers Union approached the labour court, demanding that they be permanently employed.
The city then resolved to absorb them permanently.
At the time, the metro said it had opted not to defend the court action, with then city manager Andile Sihlahla saying “the case was not winnable”.
Sihlahla said absorbing the employees would not be an additional financial burden on ratepayers as their R45m a year combined salary bill was already part of the municipal budget.
The employees included administrative assistants for all the metro’s 50 wards, bodyguards, managers in senior political offices, constituency co-ordinators, researchers, council development co-ordinators, driver-messengers, housekeepers, secretaries, speechwriters, office attendants and receptionists.
The Dispatch was not able to established if any other employees from this group had been dismissed.
DA councillors said at the time that the move would disadvantage new political office bearers who would ordinarily bring their own staff with them when they assumed office.
It said the decision “would create an unnecessary precedent and present a financial burden when new politicians wanted to hire their own staff”.
The manager was removed from his lucrative post a few months after current mayor Princess Faku assumed office in 2023.
He took the matter to arbitration in April and July 2024 and was awarded the R2.1m compensation in August, with the bargaining council’s Mxolisi Nozigqwaba ordering the metro to pay the settlement by the end of September.
When that did not happen, moves to attach the city’s bank account were initiated, but this was halted when metro authorities finally lodged an appeal with the labour court.
In his judgment, Nozigqwaba said: “The applicant’s dismissal was substantively unfair and the primary remedy for such dismissal is reinstatement.
“However, the respondent has pleaded that taking the applicant back is impossible as the position he occupied was advertised and has been filled.”
On Wednesday, the political appointee declined to comment and referred questions to his attorney, Unathi Mbebe, who confirmed the matter was heading to the labour court.
“Such an application was indeed served electronically on us, without bond of security furnished as they had stated that the employer was in the process of transferring it to their trust account, hence we contemplated attaching their bank account,” she said.
Questions were sent to the mayor's spokeperson Bongani Fuzile but he referred the Dispatch to BCM spokesperson Samkelo Ngwenya. On Wednesday Ngwenya declined to comment, saying it was a “highly confidential” labour matter “pertaining to employer and employee relations”.
DA councillor Anathi Majeke said her party’s concerns regarding the permanent absorption of political appointees “have been proven valid”.
“By appealing the decision, BCM is essentially challenging the legality and appropriateness of the initial decision.
“This suggests that the municipality may have concerns about the process followed or the potential consequences of the absorption.
“A lot of the other political appointees who were absorbed have become redundant.
“It will be interesting to see how the appeal process unfolds.
“The decision could have significant implications for future appointments and the overall governance of the municipality.
“This is yet again another waste of taxpayers’ money for a decision that was irregularly made in the interest of political expediency.”
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