The headline “R10bn costs slash in 2016” Cape Argus Feb 24 infers that “Thousands of government posts to be frozen except critical positions”. Sadly this will not help service delivery as a major flaw in the system is people within state employ that actually add little value besides as political loyalists.

We have all worked with or observed the ineptness within state departments and parastatals and the inability of some sectors to achieve clean audits. Also with the relentless problems regarding service delivery it is evident that we have many useless people in the employ of the state.

For years many of us worked with colleagues that cannot read or write properly or perform basic tasks but cannot be fired as they are politically connected. How and why unusable but connected workers are employed says much about the ethics of South African HR practice.

While all jobs should have strict employment criteria these norms are often shelved in the name of political expediency. It is therefore imperative for the media to perform the required research and probe that all civil servants at least have the proper criterion as required by law to perform the job.

For example, at provincial government a Deputy Director must have a degree or similar qualification. Currently there are many Deputy Directors currently employed that do not have the qualification.

After British colonial rule, Afrikaners also used state employ to expand the civil service with employ of jobless white Afrikaners. The ANC and DA are now doing the same with their comrade deployment.

Thus the cited article confirms that those with the required qualifications will remain jobless while the current unqualified state staffs have job security. This is unfair to the thousands of non-political but qualified graduates as logic suggests that the unqualified are part of the reigning political apparatus.

The time has come for all South Africans to insist that civil servant employ remain free of political meddling and officials must be hired purely on merit with due attention of the transformation agenda.

We cannot continue with the DA and ANC hiring primarily their cronies in key positions while qualified university graduates white, black and brown that studied for years to achieve degrees, remain jobless.

Cllr Yagyah Adams

Cape Muslim Congress

 

Total Page Visits: 651 - Today Page Visits: 1