adminLOCAL authorities have been ordered to employ qualified officials, with the Government noting that the continued engagement of unqualified personnel had had a negative effect on service delivery.
This comes in the backdrop of revelations that most local authorities were operating with unqualified heads of departments with most of them having gone for over five years without substantive HODs while others have had to employ under-qualified personnel to fill in strategic positions.
Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Cde Saviour Kasukuwere said it did not make sense that councils continued to employ unqualified officials as the Government had long given them the go-ahead to employ people to hold strategic positions.
“We want to see these councils employing people who are competent and qualified. Zimbabwe has no shortage of skills hence there is no reason at all for these people to be employing people who are not qualified for the jobs they are employed to do. Councils must have a full complement which will show that they take service delivery seriously.
“However, we fully understand some of these authorities don’t have the financial resources to employ but what we are simply saying is that they cannot continue hiding behind the reason that the ministry ordered them to freeze all employment. What we have said is: employ. We don’t want service delivery to be negatively affected because of a purported freeze,” said Cde Kasukuwere.
He said it would not make sense for the ministry to be continually putting pressure on councils to improve service delivery when there were no qualified workers to do the job.
“It makes no sense at all that you have more people on acting capacity. Why not just employ a qualified substantive individual for that position. The nice part about this is that we have the qualified people out there. We must not wait for these people to relocate then we start crying of brain drain,” said the minister.
Investigations by this publication revealed that councils in the country have gone for years relying on under-qualified personnel to head strategic offices while in some cases some of the individuals were not registered with any professional association as required by law.
In Bulawayo, the local authority’s engineering department has a massive backlog in terms of recruitment, with a number of under-qualified individuals having to lead various strategic departments.
In Gweru, out of the local authority’s five head of departments, only one is substantive and has the requisite qualifications.
According to leaked documents, Bulawayo City Council’s water department is being headed by a person who holds Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering, when the incumbent should have a qualification in civil engineering.
“The Water Department which under normal circumstances should be run by a civil engineer registered with Zimbabwe Institution of Engineers is being run by a mechanical engineer who recently returned from Botswana after 20 years there. He was somehow employed without interviews engaged by council and promoted without advertising the position and now he is acting deputy director (water) while council awaits the Local Government Board to ratify their flawed recommendation.
“The acting head of roads (planning), holds a diploma and despite his over 20 years of experience is not registered by the Institution of Engineers, notwithstanding the fact that he supervises engineers with 10 years’ experience with Masters qualification,” reads the document.
Online Reporter