adminPROVINCIAL and district administrators have been mandated with overseeing the appraisal process for all council employees to determine whether their yearly contracts are reviewed, it has been learnt.
The provincial and district administrators will now also be at the forefront of deciding whether these council employees get their bonuses or not and at what percentage based on their performance during that period.
Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Dr Ignatius Chombo late last year announced that all council employees, especially town clerks, town secretaries and chief executive officers, would now be required to sign yearly performance-based contracts, while council employees would get bonuses according to their performance during the year.
According to a letter sent to all local authorities by the acting Local Government, Public Works and National Housing secretary, Retired Colonel Joseph Mhakayakora, councils have been instructed to formulate a special human resources committee that must include the mayor or council chairperson that will act as the appraiser while the PAs and DAs would act as the reviewer of the appraising process.
“For the purpose of appraising the chief executive officer/town clerk/town secretary, an appraisal committee chaired by the chairperson of the committee responsible for human resource matters shall assume the role of the appraiser. The said the committee shall be made up of members of the human resources committee and the mayor/chairperson of council/board.
“The respective district administrator shall attend and participate during the appraisal process for the purpose of giving guidance and advice. In the case of Harare and Bulawayo Metropolitan councils, the respective provincial administrators shall provide guidance and advice in the said meetings, the provincial administrator shall undertake the role of reviewer of the appraisal process,” reads part of the letter.
For Bulawayo and Harare the secretary for Local Government, Public Works and National Housing shall also assume the role of the reviewer of the process.
Rtd Col Mhakayakora further stated that following the appraisal of the executive head of council, the performance rating process shall be cascaded to heads of departments and across all levels of the local authority to determine their bonus levels or whether their contracts will be renewed.
He further gave steps to be taken in the appraising process where the chief executive officer/town clerk/town secretary shall, at the end of the year, submit the completed performance matrix to the appraiser.
The appraiser would then meet the appraisee to deliberate and award performance scores on the performance matrix before they deliberate formally on the outcome of the appraisal process.
“The foregoing is in compliance with cabinet’s directive on remuneration in parastatals and state enterprises, to this end; bonuses will only be awarded for satisfactory and exceptional performance.
“It is imperative that performance contracts shall inform the awarding of bonuses which shall be premised on achievement of agreed performance targets,” reads the letter.
According to the rating scale issued by the Ministry the council official can be rated from one to six, where if one is rated at six he is noted to be exceeding set targets, at five the employee’s performance will be above set targets but within variance while at four they would have met all agreed set targets.
If the employee receives a rating of three their performance will be below set targets but within variance, at two the official and subsequently the council department’s performance will be below set targets while a score of one reflects that nothing was accomplished. “For performance in category four, the official concerned shall be entitled to not more than 50 percent of basic salary; category five shall be awarded not more than 75 percent of basic salary while category six shall not exceed 100 percent of basic salary,” reads the letter from Rtd Col Mhakayakora.
The acting secretary further noted that any employee who gets a rating from three downwards would not be entitled to any bonus at all.
When he announced this new provision Minister Chombo said they had adopted this policy after noting that some local authorities were not operating efficiently hence the need to come up with mechanisms that would see them being forced to work instead of neglecting service delivery.
Online Reporter