White, coloured and Indian bosses wanted

The City of Tshwane is to undergo an ambitious racial and gender re-engineering programme.

According to the municipality, there are too many black men on the top rungs of its management and in its ranks of semi- and unskilled workers. But white men and women dominate among the technically skilled and professionally qualified managers.

Last week, the council approved plans for an affirmative action campaign, scheduled to run until June 2017.

According to the city's employment equity plan report, "black males are in the majority at top management level, though there is a fair representation of black females, though not in accordance with the economically active population".

The city plans to prioritise the appointment of coloured, white and Indian men and women at this level of management.

But it is the planned changes at the level of technically skilled or professionally qualified senior management that are likely to be most controversial.

"Generally, there's an over-representation of white males and white females at these levels. Collectively, they represent almost 23% of the total workforce, whereas [their representation in] the economically active population is at 6.6% - an over-representation of about 17%," the report states.

To level the playing field, Tshwane will limit the appointment and promotion of white men and women and allow white people of pensionable age to retire.

The move is likely to cause an uproar, and even legal action against the city.

In 2011, trade union Solidarity took the municipality to the labour court after it denied union member Marco de Sampaio a promotion, based on race. The court ruled that De Sampaio could not be passed over for the position because he was white.

De Sampaio, a professional technologist, had acted as deputy director for system development in the department of water and sanitation since 2008. But he was denied the job when he applied, even after the labour court ruled that employment equity could not be used as a criterion.

Tshwane's insistence on applying affirmative action flies in the face of an admission by Minister of Public Service Lindiwe Sisulu in June that the public service was fully transformed.

According to the equity plan, Tshwane has employed only 19 disabled people in the past 10 years.