METRO COMMITTEE ADOPTS REVISED EMPLOYMENT EQUITY POLICY
- BEE NEWS
- Mar 18
- 3 min read
Andisa Bonani | 18 March 2025
HIRING POLICY: A reviewed draft employment equity policy has been adopted by the Nelson Mandela Bay corporate services committee
DA councillor flags grammatical errors and failure to specify use of provincial demographics.
Despite being riddled with grammatical errors, a reviewed draft employment equity policy was adopted at a Nelson Mandela Bay corporate services committee meeting on Monday.
The errors in the document were highlighted by DA councillor Annette Lovemore. She has previously raised concerns about the issue.
Lovemore said she did not want to seem to be nitpicking by individually pointing out the errors but something had to be done.
“There are also instances where there should be commas. Pointing each one of them out would be time-consuming.
“I should file a written submission with all the errors I’ve noted.”
Among other concerns, Lovemore said the document should state under the affirmative action header that the city bases its employment equity targets on provincial demographics.
The metro’s use of the provincial race demographics has been widely criticised for years, particularly by coloured people.
The municipality uses the 2023 employment equity annual report for demographics which shows that 84% of the province’s population is black, 10.4% is coloured, 5.1% is white and 0.5% identifies as Indian or Asian.
This demographic is for those who are economically active and does not include metro figures.
“It should state that we have chosen to use the provincial demographics because that’s what we have done as a city.
“Also, we don’t regularly measure the implementation of our employment equity plan.
“If there are five posts that require four women and a man, we don’t go back to look at what we have done.
“There is no monitoring which means this is a touch meaningless.”
The revised employment equity entails the addition of new clauses including affirmative action and the integration of skills development.
Under affirmative action, the report by corporate services executive director Nosipho Xhego, states: “The municipality will adopt affirmative action measures to ensure that suitably qualified people from designated groups have equal employment opportunities and are equitably represented in all occupational levels within the municipality.”
To achieve this, the report states the city will undertake measures that include the preferential treatment of designated groups to achieve numerical goals.
“As a matter of good practice, deviation from employment equity targets is not encouraged but in exceptional cases where justifiable reasons [are] provided, deviation may be approved by the accounting officer as the head of the administration.”
While under the integration of skills development clause, the document states that the city strives to integrate skills development and employment equity policies, strategies and practices.
“This will be done by defining short-, medium- and long-term goals to promote transformation within the municipality.
“Identifying the necessary training required to achieve employment equity objectives, allocation funds to support this training and monitoring and evaluating progress towards these goals,” the report reads.
ANC councillor Lungile Langbooi said it was incorrect of Lovemore to say the city chose to use provincial demographics.
“The municipality is simply after legislation and that’s why we use provincial demographics and not the regional [Nelson Mandela Bay] ones as you would like.
“So it’s not a choice the city made, the institution is required by law.”
Skills development and employment equity deputy director Nofilita Doni said the grammatical errors were embarrassing.
“More so because this document was vetted in the COO’s [chief operating officer] office, but we will follow up on this matter.”
Responding to concerns about the implementation of the employment equity plan, Doni said there were instances where some executive directors appointed people outside the required employment equity targets.
“Executive directors as heads of the different directorates are responsible for the employment of staff in the respective departments, there are those who would do their own thing without applying for a deviation [from the targets].
“The policy now requires the executive directors to be intentional about employing people within the designated groups [such as people with disabilities] especially for office jobs that don’t require them to be physically active in their duties.”
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