The City of Johannesburg is expected to screen at least ten of its shortlisted candidates as it hunts for a new city top boss on Tuesday.
While scrambling to recover from a service delivery backlog, the city has been without a permanently-appointed municipal manager since December last year.
A senior government official told the Sunday Times that the process has dragged on because city manager hopefuls have had to undergo a rigorous vetting process before their sit-down interviews.
“The vetting used to be done after the interviews, but we have since discovered that an individual will go through the interview and perform well in the process — only to discover that there are issues such as criminal records after the vetting has been concluded.
“So now we are doing it before and/or concurrently. The vetting assessment of the candidates was presented to the panel two weeks ago, but it apparently was not complete,” the source said.
They added that the panel was abruptly changed after the mayor reshuffled his MMCs, which could cause further delay.
For eight months, the city has been trying to find a replacement for former city manager Floyd Brink, who was ousted after a legal wrangle sponsored by the DA, with the courts establishing that his appointment in December last year was irregular.
At the time, the government of local unity coalition took a decision not to appeal the outcome but instead appoint city operations officer Tshepo Makola to act in the position while they searched for a replacement early this year.
However, Makola’s acting stint lapsed before the council concluded the recruitment process, which led the executive to table a report in March seeking to extend his acting arrangement for a further three months, ending in June.
At that council meeting, then group corporate and shared services MMC, now finance MMC, Loyiso Masuku told councillors it was in the executive’s interest the vacancy was filled, but they could not commit to a timeline.
