The mayor of Johannesburg, Dada Morero, has struggled to explain to parliamentarians why the CEOs of the City’s municipal companies earn more than President Cyril Ramaphosa.
According to reports, the CEOs of the City’s 13 municipal companies earn a total annual salary package of up to nearly R5-million, despite widespread service delivery failures and infrastructure backlogs.
On Tuesday, Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts demanded to know why these executives earn so much.
Initially, Morero struggled to explain. He told the committee that his delegation would submit a report at a later stage.
“We will give a full response, accommodating and giving a reflection of every CEO appointed… maybe some benchmarking would have been done before they arrived at those decisions, so let’s give you a comprehensive report. Otherwise, at this stage, I will find myself thumb sucking.”
But Scopa chairperson, Songezo Zibi, challenged Morero.
“This should not be complicated, Mr Mayor and City Manager, one of you should know what criteria is used to do the job grading, the scope of the job, the size of the balance sheet, surely? Surely you know those things?”
A cost we can’t pass on to residents
City Manager Floyd Brink explained that the salaries were justified because of “the scope and the complexity of their jobs”.
“They have got a completely different system in terms of their own benchmarking and the scales of their salaries.
“It is something that the Executive Mayor raised recently as well, that we now need to go through our corporate service departments and governance and rationalise this because clearly it is not a cost that we believe should be passed on to the residents,” he said.
He also admitted there is concern about whether the City is getting value for money from the payments made to these CEOs.
The committee agreed that the City will send a detailed report on this matter, including the salaries being paid to board members of these struggling municipal companies.
Themba Mathibe investigation
Meanwhile, Zibi also criticised Morero and Brink for failing to investigate money-laundering allegations against the controversial CEO of the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), Themba Mathibe.
Mathibe was arrested earlier this year after police found over R300 000 in his Sandton house. At the time of his arrest, reports suggested that around R1 million had been found.
Mathibe is a member of the ANC Youth League and was appointed CEO of the Johannesburg Housing Company and, later, Johannesburg Development Agency, while in his 20s.
Mathibe’s case has since been thrown out of court while the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) gathers its case.
Zibi questioned Morero, Brink and the deputy mayor Loyiso Masuku on why they buried their heads in the sand when Mathibe’s matter was a cause for concern.
“Here is my difficulty, neither the mayor nor the MMC concerned, nor the board, nor any of you have ever bothered to find out and know where this gentleman got this money – that much we know.
“Because had you bothered to find out, there would be no need to convene and talk about this matter outside,” he said.
He recommended that the City conduct lifestyle audits of its employees.
