Daily Dispatch
BCM sounding like Hlaudi
ONE has to wonder what exactly Buffalo City Metro spokesman Sibusiso Cindi was thinking when he told the Daily Dispatch that the appointment of Fikiswa Jakeni-Gomba to the post of BCM health services general manager earlier this year was a “private matter, a contractual agreement between the BCM and the said employee, and thus I’m unable to comment in the media about it”.
Jakeni-Gomba is paid a handsome R1-million a year for the not so unimportant task of ensuring food and water safety for BCM’s plus minus 800 000 inhabitants.
Yet we have it on impeccable authority that Jakeni-Gomba, while happily ensconced in this marvelously salaried position, is still without the requisite qualifications.
The specifications for this job, as advertised on May 16, state that this manager must be registered with the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA) or the South African Nursing Council, or be registered within six months.
The need for such qualifications would, one would like to think, not be lost on those unnamed powers within BCM with oversight of this position.
Yet the laudably conscientious but scandalously unappreciated HPCSA inspector Mamadiga Mamabolo has had to trek from one door to another in BCM seeking to rectify this potentially life-threatening anomaly, only to have each and every door slammed shut in his commendably professional face.
The end result is that Mamabolo is now so desperate to safeguard the health of BCM’s residents – along with flocks of holidaymakers – that he is contemplating laying criminal charges.
Jakeni-Gomba puts the HPCSA recordbooks being entirely barren of any trace of her name down to “a lie”. This is, frankly, very difficult to belive. At such moments citizens understandably turn to the officials they entrust with oversight of their affairs for clarity and for reassurance. Yet Cindi deemed the matter a “private” one and sought to brush off our reporter with an imperious, Hlaudi-esque response. It was one that essentially insulted every person who eats, drinks and/or pays rates and taxes in Buffalo City.
It is important to stress here that our argument is not with Cindi. Rather, it is with those behind the scenes who bark out idiotic responses while they wield power with reckless disregard for the people of BCM.
Not only is this rank arrogance, but a disturbing exhibition of an inability to grasp the very fundamental purpose of local government as a vehicle designed to serve local communities. It is also supposed to be a vehicle separated from party politics.
BCM has theoretically been attempting to conduct a skills audit for some time. The Jakeni-Gomba case demonstrates the urgent need for this process to be seen through to completion.
In the meantime, citizens of our corruption-riddled metro will have no alternative but to resort to the law – including legislation such as the Promotion of Access to Information Act – to ensure the right to transparency and accountability as promised by constitutional democracy.