HR Pulse

City of Johannesburg

The City of Johannesburg last month said it would have resolved about 200 000 billing-related queries by the end of June, in line with its November promise. Thousands of residents had issues with their statements after the city moved its disparate systems onto a SAP platform through a project codenamed Phakama. The move cost at least R580 million.

In March, there were about 100 000 queries from the city's 1.3 million accountholders that related to billing issues. Of these, 66 000 dated back from the end of October, while 35 000 were “new” queries lodged since November.

The city also said it was working on resolving current queries within 30 days, with a view to resolving all new queries within 30 days by August. By 26 June, it claimed to have solved more than 85% of the backlog and now says 98% of issues have been sorted out.

However, there are several complaints on consumer forums that have not been resolved, some of which date back more than two years.

No answers

Lee Cahill, founding member of Joburg Advocacy Group, says based on the non-profit group's own experience and on resident commentary in various forums, it cannot accept the city's claims that all billing queries, other than those logged in the last 30 days, have been resolved.

“The city has always been 'economical' with its stats on the billing crisis, but since the appointment of the new city manager, Trevor Fowler, it has failed to release any statistics whatsoever on billing complaints and disputes.”

Cahill points out that if 200 000 queries were to have been resolved between 1 November 2011 and the end of June, the city would have had to solve about 1 200 queries every single working day, over the past eight months.

“Statistics available on Mobilitate indicate that only 8.8% of billing queries logged on the site have been resolved,” says Cahill. “The gap between these publicly-available statistics and the city's claims indicate only one thing: that the city is consciously misinforming its residents and the public in general.”

Almost there

Stan Maphologela, deputy director of customer communications in the city's revenue and customer relations department, says “great progress has been made and it would be totally wrong to suggest that there is a lack of resolution”.

Maphologela says less than 2% of the backlog queries remained open at the end of June. He says the outstanding queries had some technical difficulties, such as wrapping up deceased estates, backlogs in change of ownership matters triggered by a delay in receiving files from the deeds, as well as problems as a result of a lack of access to meters and broken meters.

Source: ITWeb Virtual Print Offices.

Civil servants' war

www.timeslive.co.za reports: “Wage negotiations between the government and civil servants will continue this week, the public service ministry said on last Sunday. Public Service Minister Lindiwe Sisulu welcomed the decision by unions to continue with the negotiations after they declared a wage dispute two weeks ago."

"With over 1.3 million employees in national and provincial governments and close to one million in municipalities and other institutions of government, the public service must lead in productivity and be on the forefront of our service delivery and collective efforts for a South Africa free of poverty and joblessness" Sisulu said in a statement.

The newspaper states: National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers general secretary Success Mataitsane said he hoped that the negotiations would bring a more favourable offer to workers.  "We welcome any move towards the resolution of the dispute," he said.  "Our approach to the meeting will be to see if there if a change of heart in the employers."

“He said a conciliation meeting was scheduled for July 10. ‘We are hoping that they [government] will come up with a better offer... [in order]  to make the meeting redundant.’ 

On Tuesday, Sisulu said the government had offered civil servants a nine percent raise, made up of a 6.5 percent salary rise and a 2.5 percent increase in benefits” to quote The Times.

Labour was demanding an eight percent salary increase. Sisulu said the Treasury had budgeted for only a five percent increase. "Government [is] in a situation where nine percent is way above what it has budgeted for," she said.

Author: HR Pulse News Desk

Labour appoints CEO

The Department of Labour (DOL) has appointed Thabo Sefali as its new CIO.

The department says he joins it at a time when it is in the throes of “an exit plan from a 10-year billion-rand public private partnership (PPP) with Siemens”. It adds that Sefali will drive the post-PPP ICT strategy.

“Sefali will be responsible for all ICT-related functions, as well as playing a role in developing and the execution of the DOL's new ICT strategy.”

IT fixation

Sefali started his journey into IT in 1995, when he registered for a computer programming course at WS & L Training College, in Cape Town. He says he became fixated with IT during his involvement in youth development organisations.

Sefali previously worked for financial services group Old Mutual, consulted for Anglo American and Anglo Gold as an independent contractor through an IBM contractor programme, and between 2000 and 2006 he joined Woolworths as an analyst programmer and left as IT process manager.

He then joined the public sector where he worked as IT operations manager in the Department of Water Affairs until 2008. He later branched into rural development and land reform where he was appointed as IT director.

Paperless entity

In February, the IT contract between Siemens and the department – to deliver IT systems – was put under investigation due to non-delivery, among other issues.

The department now says the Siemens PPP will end in November this year. The service transfer handover process is planned to begin in September.

The initial contract was valued at R1.2 billion, over a 10-year period. At its conclusion, in November, it would have shot up to R1.9 billion, factoring in the consumer price index and expenditure on additional services.

“In the short-term, the focus is to ensure the stability of the organisation and a smooth transition until the end of the contract into a new integrated ICT strategy. We do not have a choice. The contract is coming to an end, and we need a strategy to map our future,” says Sefali.

“Post the exit strategy, we intend to become a vibrant ICT organisation that has an internal capacity, something that we missed with the PPP. Where necessary, we will have resort to multiple sourcing options to beef up capacity. We are looking at modernising the organisation into a paperless entity that would contribute to green initiatives, while ensuring that our services are accessible to the public through various platforms including online, mobile, advanced contact centres and other possible channels through partnering with industry.”

Hybrid solution

Last week, the department announced it had opted for a hybrid approach in implementing the new ICT model as it winds up the PPP with Siemens.

This approach includes retaining all current staff, invoking the concession option, and/or issuing service requests to the industry as required.

The department emphasises that it has intentions to establish and use internal capacity going forward, and outsourcing will be considered where necessary.

Source: IT Web Virtual Press Offices.

Public sector: higher salaries

South Africans are twice as likely to be employed in the public sector today than they were 40 years ago, according to Mike Schussler, the chief economist at Economists.co.za. And the salaries of the nearly 23 percent of formal sector workers employed in the public sector are much higher than those in private businesses – reports www.iol.co.za.

The newssite further states: Presenting trade union Uasa’s 2012 employment report in Johannesburg, Schussler said the average government salary last year was 34 percent higher than salaries in the private sector, while employees at state-owned enterprises earned about 43 percent more.

“Government salaries account for more than 12.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and, together with the salaries paid by state-owned enterprises, they add up to over 14.3 percent of GDP.” He said this percentage was amongst the highest in the world. “Some countries with similar figures, (such as) Portugal, Greece and France, are facing debt-payment crises today.”

While public sector employment had doubled as a percentage of the total, the “productive sector has struggled for decades to create jobs,” Schussler said. As a result, fewer people were employed in manufacturing in the second quarter of last year than at any time since 1972.

The reason the private sector found it difficult to create jobs was that the cost of producing goods and services had risen too quickly, with wages of unskilled workers rocketing “about twice as quickly as in the rich world, while management and specialised skills are often underpaid.”

Author: HR Pulse News Desk

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Pay talks

www.allafrica.com reports: Public sector pay talks are on hold while Cosatu seeks a mandate on the government's latest offer, the public service ministry said on Wednesday. "Cosatu has asked for two weeks to consult," ministerial spokesman Ndivhuwo Mabaya said. He confirmed that the government had upped its latest offer to a general salary increase of 6.7 percent, from 6.5 percent for the 2012/2013 financial year.

The most recent round of wage negotiations began on Monday evening and finished on Tuesday around 3.30am. "We were ready to come back to the negotiating table this morning [Wednesday], but Cosatu said they need to seek a mandate."

 While there had been "some progress," the Independent Labour Caucus (ILC), which represents 11 unions, was not satisfied with the latest offer, its spokesman Chris Kloppers said. He said the caucus had lowered its demand from 8 to 7.5 percent.

The website further reports: Mabaya said the government was negotiating in good faith. "We are not saying it is 6.7 percent and anyone who doesn't like it must go home. We are considering the competing demands on this country. We have to work with what we have."

Newly-appointed Public Service and Administration Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has previously indicated that the government's offer to unions was already billions of rands over what it had budgeted. On Wednesday, Mabaya said the government would resume talks as soon as the Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) was ready. "Anytime, we are ready.... We are on stand-by 24 hours a day."

Kloppers earlier said talks were on hold because state negotiators were out of the country."This week, the state's chief negotiators have gone on an overseas trip to Canada," he said. They were expected back on July 11.

Mabaya said it was a study trip for people representing all parties involved in the public sector bargaining council, including ILC negotiators. "They cannot say they are waiting for Canada. They are waiting for Cosatu." Mabaya said the government wanted to resolve pay talks so it could focus on eradicating inefficiency in the sector. "They do miracles and we reward them well." The talks deadlocked in May, but Sisulu tried to revive them in June. The new talks deadlocked mid-month when the ILC declared a wage dispute.

Author: HR Pulse News Desk.