Mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille. Picture: @brettherron Mayor of Cape Town Patricia de Lille. Picture: @brettherron
Cape Town - The city council’s mayoral committee has approved the permanent appointment of 11 community liaison officers to improve the way the city communicates with residents, especially poorer communities.
The creation of the new posts, which will replace the existing posts of senior secretary within the councillor support office, will cost the city R5.1 million in this financial year.
Mayor Patricia de Lille said while the posts would be permanently created on the council’s new staffing structure, the appointments would be made on contract.
The role and function of the community liaison officers would be to improve the council’s responsiveness to residents and to improve the councils communication with communities.
“To think when we as mayco members issue a press statement that it is enough, it isn’t. We need to go to the communities affected by that statement, and engage directly with them, to inform them what the city (council) will be doing,” she said.
“These community liaison officers will help us to engage directly with the communities who the spending is meant for.
“Many of the poorer people don’t have access to newspapers, they can’t afford newspapers, so these community liaison officers are going to improve communication especially with our poorer communities.”
A report to Mayco said the finance department had made provision on the budget for the creation of the posts and the amount would be accounted for in the adjustments budget in January.
DA chief whip Shaun August said the council was also looking at creating support for ward councillors to run their offices. Unlike MPs and MPLs which received such support paid from the national fiscus, ward councillors did not have any.
“They have to manage issues in their communities in the field, while making sure their offices are open and accessible.
The council is therefore exploring ideas around how ward offices can remain fully operational for our residents’ use while ward councillors are out in the field,” he said.
But to make this happen, adjustments would have to be made on the budgets of subcouncils and portfolio committees.
“Proposals are being considered at the moment but no decisions have been made,” said August.
Mayco has meanwhile also approved the permanent appointment of executive personal assistants to the 24 subcouncil chairmen.
According to a report to mayco, the remaining executive personal assistant positions that are still vacant, as well as those filled by political appointments, will now be filled with permanent staff members.
Seven of these positions are filled by political appointments on contracts, which will be terminated. Sixteen of the jobs are permanently filled, and another post has been abolished.
“It is the considered opinion that the contractual political appointments of executive personal assistants to chairpersons of subcouncils, are not conducive in providing an efficient, effective and professional support service to the chairperson of the subcouncil,” said the report.
Political appointments will now be assessed to determine their competency for the new jobs.
The council hopes to fill the new posts before the establishment of the new subcouncils towards the end of the year.
lindsay.dentlinger@inl.co.za
Cape Argus