Pretoria - New Tshwane city manager Johann Mettler has been warned by the ANC against hiring incompetent senior managers.
The former Nelson Mandela Bay city manager is expected to preside over the appointment of senior managers in the coming six months.
The multi-party coalition in Tshwane recently came under fire for having acting managers in positions such as a chief financial officer, a governance support officer, a chief of emergency services, a group head in the office of city manager and a group head for city strategies.
The ANC said: “We caution him not to fall for the trap of appointing friends of the DA-led coalition because they have a lot of incapable individuals who want to use their membership and colour to occupy those offices.”
It further blasted the DA-led coalition for having “a clear record of overlooking qualifications and experience of women and black professionals”.
“We will be friendly to senior managers who are willing to perform 100% of their scorecards and beyond. The Auditor-General South Africa has flagged the capital city on its overuse and reliance on consultants and deviations.
“This tendency must be curtailed post-haste,” the party said. The party vowed to hold the governing DA-led coalition to account at all material times, saying it was a majority party in charge of 70 of the 104 wards in the metro. The party also criticised Mettler’s appointment, saying he was a beneficiary of the DA’s deployment.
“The DA wanted to deploy him at all costs in either the City of Joburg, where his deployment was tainted with unethical practices and subsequently fell through, or the City of Tshwane, where his appointment has been successfully effected,” it said.
The party said Mettler came with a cloud over his head from the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro, “where he was let go with a golden handshake and we will not allow him to further ruin the capital city”.
In his CV, Mettler stated that he left Nelson Mandela Bay following a settlement agreement between the two parties.
He worked for the municipality from 2016 until 2020. Until November 2021 he was an administrator at the Lekwa Municipality in Mpumalanga.
He indicated in his job application that he had never been convicted of a criminal offence involving financial misconduct, corruption on or after July 5 2011.
Pretoria News