Anda Bonani | March 18, 2025
Employment Policy: Employment equity policy reviewed by the Nelson Mandela Bay Corporate Services Committee has been adopted
DA councillors have flagged grammatical errors and failure to designate the use of state demographics.
Despite being full of grammatical errors, the reviewed employment and equity equity policy was adopted at a meeting of the Nelson Mandela Bay Corporate Services Committee on Monday.
The error in the documentation was highlighted by DA Councillor Annette Lovemore. She has previously raised concerns about the issue.
Lovemore said that by pointing out the error individually, she didn't want to nip, but had to do something.
“It can take some time to point to each one.
“You need to submit a submission with all the errors I've noticed.”
Among other concerns, Lovemore said the document states that the city is targeting its city's demographics.
The use of subway state racial statistics has been widely criticized for many years, especially by people of color.
Municipalities use their 2023 Employment Equity Annual Report on their demographics showing that 84% of the state's population is black, 10.4% are colored, 5.1% are white and 0.5% are identified as Indian or Asian.
This demographic is for those who are economically active and do not include Metro Figures.
“We should state that we chose to use the state demographics because that is what we did as a city.
“We also do not regularly measure the implementation of employment equity plans.
“If there are five posts that require four women and one man, we won't go back to see what we did.
“There's no surveillance. So this is a pointless touch.”
The revised employment equity involves the addition of new clauses, such as positive behaviour and integration of skill development.
Under positive actions, a report from Corporate Services Executive Director Nosipho Xhego stated: “The municipality will adopt positive action measures to ensure that the appropriately qualified people in designated groups have equal employment opportunities and are fairly represented at all occupational levels within the municipality.”
To achieve this, the report says the city will take steps that include prioritizing designated groups to achieve its numerical targets.
“A good practice issue is that deviating from the equity target of employment is not encouraged, but in exceptional cases where justification is provided, the accountant could be approved as head of the administration.”
Under the integration of the Skills Development Clause, the document states that the city aims to integrate its policies, strategies and practices of skill development and employment equity.
“This is done by defining short-term, medium-term and long-term goals to promote change within the municipality.
“We will identify the training needed to achieve employment equity targets and identify allotment funds to assess this training and monitoring and progress towards these targets,” the report reads.
ANC Councillor Lungile Langbooi said Lovemore was wrong to say the city chose to use local demographics.
“The municipality is simply after the law. That's why we use local demographics, not local (Nelson Mandela Bay) as you would like.
“So it's not a choice made by the city, the system is mandatory by law.”
Nofilita Denis, assistant director of skill development and employment equity, said grammatical errors were embarrassing.
“In addition, this document has been reviewed by the COO's office, and we will follow up on this issue.”
In response to concerns about the implementation of employment equity plans, Denis said there have been cases in which some executive directors have appointed people who are not eligible for the necessary employment equity.
“The executive directors, as heads of various directors, are responsible for hiring staff in their respective departments, and some do their own thing without applying for deviations (from the target).
“Currently, this policy requires intentional employment of people within designated groups (such as disabled people) for office jobs that do not require physical activity in their duties.”
“Disclaimer – the views and opinions expressed in this article are the views of the author and are not necessarily those of the Bee Room.”
