The eThekwini municipality is to hire about 40 top administrators in a bold move to speed up service delivery and transformation.
In an effort to cut bureaucratic red tape seen as a stumbling block to the provision of services, applications are being invited from both internal and external candidates until Friday.
This follows the approval of the new "first page" job structure at the helm of which sits municipal manager Michael Sutcliffe.
The council's executive committee has given the thumbs-up to the plan to hire administrative leadership at an estimated R46 million annual cost to the Durban unicity.
Sutcliffe said the incumbents, including six deputy municipal managers, would operate in line with international trends and would be based on South African constitutional and developmental challenges and strategic directions.
The organogram is broken down into four sub-offices within the office of the municipal manager, and six deputy municipal managers, each of whom will head up three to five service units. Reporting to a deputy municipal manager, the head of each service unit will have several departments under their command.
Each of the four offices under the wing of the municipal manager is expected to manage a deputy municipal manager as well as perform other tasks:
- The Office of Geographical Information and Policy will drive the municipal geographic and information technology programme and integrate all policy review programmes.
- The Office of the Ombudsman tasked, among other duties, to assist the municipal manager, mayor and speaker in providing advice around legislative issues; independently address racism, sexism, nepotism and discrimination issues, assist the municipal manager in investigating and dealing with maladministration and help the speaker in dealing with disciplinary matters.
- The Office of Internal Audit and Performance Management, and
- The Office of International and Governance Relations.