By EDN Reporter
A move devised by the interim council to have Mbabane Municipal Council CEO Gedion Mhlongo’s contract extended by six months has been thrown out of the window by the Minister of Housing and Urban Development Prince Simelane.
Mhlongo’s contract issue is no stranger to triggering a debate on whether it should be renewed or not and that fuss has come to the fore once again. There has always been controversy when it comes to the renewal of his contract.
The Eswatini Daily News has reliably established that in the absence of a council, the interim one has reportedly filed a request with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, asking Minister Prince Simelane to give Mhlongo more time in office, for a period not exceeding six months, a demand that was unfortunately turned down.
Well-placed sources have told this publication that Interim Mayor, Daphney Mhlanga sought to have the outgoing CEO remain at the helm for at least six months to allow for the local government elections to be conducted and a new council to be sworn in.
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“She was being professional as she believed that being an interim it did not make sense to be the one responsible for contract issues of the CEO or even hire one. Also, she believed that the next council which will be in office for five years should be the one that should be involved in either the renewal of Mhlongo’s contract or the hiring of a new one,” the sources said.
Instead of agreeing to the request, Prince Simelane is said to have advised that the process of hiring a new CEO should just begin. The sources went on to say the minister based his decision on the fact that a new council will be in place by the end of this month as the local government elections will be taking place on June 24.
“Also, the minister argued that in other local municipalities, there have been circumstances where CEOs left and certain people were tasked with leading the institutions albeit on a temporal basis.”
Acting Principal Secretary Hlobsile Dlamini confirmed that there was a request to extend Mhlongo’s contract that was forwarded by the interim council and the minister responded to it accordingly. However, she then refused to give the details of the minister’s response.
Efforts to obtain a comment from the minister Prince Simelane were not successful as his cellphone rang unanswered when called for the better part of Tuesday.
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An effort was also made to obtain a comment from acting Principal Secretary Makhosi Simelane who said he was out of the country and had no knowledge of issues related to the contract of the CEO.
Mhlongo’s contract was renewed in 2018 for five years by the then Minister of Housing and Urban Development Phiwayinkhosi Mabuza. Before that, Mhlongo’s contractual issue had been the subject of intense debate in previous months.
In a meeting held on May 25 of the same year, councillors had taken a resolution not to renew the contract. He responded by writing a memorandum dated June 15, in which he said the council should embark on a contractual negotiation renewal process with the outgoing CEO.
He also ordered that the council should submit the contract for ministerial consideration by close of business on July 21 and warned that failure to submit the contract would result in Mhlongo’s current contract extension for another five years, effective August 1, 2018.
The council defied this instruction and instead wrote and informed him that they had difficulty in extending Mhlongo’s contract of employment. He again wrote to the council where he declared his final decision on the matter which was that he had renewed it on the basis that he had written to councillors to negotiate with Mhlongo on the issue of the contract and they had seemingly not followed his directive.
He justified that he renewed the contract using the Urban Government Act, Section 47 (4). The decision by Mabuza irked some of the councillors at the time such that they even contemplated seeking a legal opinion.
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Their argument they made was that it was unlawful for Mabuza to take such a decision as he had no powers to do so. Before that, the councillors had written to the minister telling him that they would not be
able to meet the deadline on his directive to have them engage Mhlongo on a three-year contract.
The minister had earlier indicated that failure by the councillors would lead to him exercising his powers to grant Mhlongo a five-year contract with the municipal council. This was after a May 25, 2018 resolution by the councillors not to renew the CEO’s contract, citing that he was too expensive for the city to maintain.
They also added his rocky relationship with both the ratepayers and councillors as another factor for not renewing the contract.
