\t\t\t<\/p>\n
During 2011, staff of the Department of Local Government were absent from work for an equivalent of 14 years.<\/p>\n
This shocking information was tabled in a report to the Portfolio Committee of Local Government and Traditional Affairs in the Bhisho Legislature last week.<\/p>\n
A total of 5 125 sick days were taken between 1 January 2011 to 31 December 2011, costing the department R4, 926 million.<\/p>\n
Of the 5 125 sick days taken in 2011, 4 417 or 86% of the sick leave was amassed by skilled and managerial employees which equates to a cost of R961 per day per employee.<\/p>\n
This answer was in response to questions raised by myself at the meeting.<\/p>\n
On behalf of the Democratic Alliance I will be raising this issue in a speech to the next plenary session in the Legislature in December and will be publicly asking the MEC for Local Government, Mlibo Qoboshiyane, why there is such a high sick rate and to supply details of how effective wellness plans are being rolled out in the department.<\/p>\n
Furthermore I will early next year be requesting the portfolio committee to mandate that a thorough investigation be done as to what is causing the high levels of absenteeism and a review of effective wellness polices to be implemented in the department to radically reduce this problem.<\/p>\n
In addition, the report states that all other leave taken by employees was not accurately recorded by the accounting officer.<\/p>\n
Of further concern is that of the 3 329 posts available in the department only 1 593 were filled during the year, resulting in the department operating on a vacancy rate of 52 %.<\/p>\n
With local government in crisis in this province it is unacceptable that the department has a high absenteeism rate which in turn delays crucial service delivery to communities.<\/p>\n
Dacre Haddon, MPL<\/strong><\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During 2011, staff of the Department of Local Government were absent from work for an equivalent of 14 years. This shocking information was tabled in a report to the Portfolio Committee of Local Government and Traditional Affairs in the Bhisho Legislature last week. A total of 5 125 sick days were taken between 1 January […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[1289,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-16882","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mype","8":"tag-port-elizabeth-2","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}