Acting Johannesburg City Manager, Mesuli Mlandu says they issued the affected employees with notices last week Monday. They had until Wednesday of that week to make representations.
“So, the effect therefore of the resolution of the council that is not rescinded, that is not reviewed in court is that then it reversed the irregularity of the conversion and brought back the FTC contracts to their original form, and we had to recognise them as such and start to implement exit requirements. And sooner or later you will be seeing adverts for those positions as fixed-term contracts. So that the political party infrastructure that won the election is able to be installed effectively.”
He says the positions are linked to the term of office of the elected politician they were attached to.
“I will allow those contracts to continue until the 30th of April. These employees who are on these FTCs are within their right to apply and there is nothing that says they will be excluded from the recruitment process.”
Johannesburg MMC for Group Corporate and Shared Services, Leah Knott says this process is about “righting a wrong” that was committed. She says an unlawful decision was taken by the previous mayoral committee under the ANC-led administration in the City of Johannesburg.
“The COGTA regulation is not the sole reason behind the rescission of this. It is a consideration or factor particularly because the second conversion which happened in October, happened on the same date that the city was given a directive or memo from SALGA, that this is the legislation that is promulgated in September it will come into effect on June 2022. Please note the following: Fixed Term contract for police office 30-day exit clause. On the same day, they signed the second conversion.”
Both labour union SAMWU and civic group SANCO are objecting to the council resolution and have vowed to take to the streets to protest against it.
City of Johannesburg clarifies the future of over 100 employees:
