COUNCIL CHIEFS EARN HIGH, BUT DO THEY PERFORM?

Reports today about sky-high salaries for municipal managers (also known as city managers or CEOs) highlights the need for their performance agreements to be made public in the interest of transparency and accountability.

The Johannesburg city manager, for instance, earns R2,3 million a year, which is higher than Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe and newly appointed Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng who earn R2.2 million a year.

Municipalities in Gauteng are struggling financially while service delivery lags behind. Despite this municipal managers like those in Johannesburg and Tshwane (R2,7 million per annum.) are paid massive salaries.

Publishing their performance contracts will allow citizens to see what is expected from top municipal officials who are paid with their rates and taxes. It will also allow analysts to evaluate whether the performance agreements are in line with each municipality's IDP which is its service delivery strategy.

In the past there has been an outcry when massive bonuses were paid to municipal officials despite the lack of service delivery. This is mainly because of the disconnect between performance agreements and municipal delivery targets as contained their IDP's.

We need to ensure that municipal officials' performance targets correspond with a municipality's delivery targets. Not only will this be ensured when the agreements are published it will also ensure crucial public oversight over municipal service delivery which is currently lacking.

I call on the MEC for local government and housing, Humphrey Mmemezi to initiate a process that will result in performance agreements being published. If ministers' agreements with the President can be published then so should that of municipal managers.

Statement issued by Fred Nel, DA Gauteng Spokesperson for Local Government, September 19 2011

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