Parliament faces staff revolt
Government is the place millions of South Africans look to annually for jobs. That is especially true of those hoping to be gainfully employed in parliament. But conflict over bad management in parliament has seen a mass exodus of senior staff, who have resigned due to their deteriorating relationship with the head of the institution, Gengezi Mgidlana.Six staff members resigned last month. Ten have resigned since January.Last year staff brought parliament to a standstill when they went on an unprotected strike.The National Education, Health and Allied Workers' Union met National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete and National Council of Provinces chairman Thandi Modise last week to ask for their intervention.The union accuses Mgidlana of running parliament like his personal fiefdom."What's happening here is no different to what is happening at the SABC."Our expectation is for the ANC to take a similar stance to the one that they have taken with regards to the SABC," said Nehawu Western Cape secretary Eric Kweleta. He said the situation was untenable.For more than a year parliamentary officials have complained about Mgidlana's style.He has faced criticism for using official vehicles fitted with police blue lights, which are reserved for parliament's presiding officers.Mxolisi Dlamuka, former content adviser to parliament's portfolio committee for arts and culture, resigned over what he described as a "dictatorship"."Deployees are like that. If you look at his behaviour, it's the same behaviour as the SABC's Hlaudi Motsoeneng. They are both deployees and are there to serve a deployer," said Dlamuka.He said Mgidlana took a decision in February to cut officials' performance scores by 1%, which saw employees eligible for performance bonuses not receiving one.Parliament spokesman Luzuko Jacobs disputed claims of an "exodus" of skilled staff.He said people join and leave organisations all the time for reasons "related to better prospects, contract expiry, family considerations or any other reason".CORRECTION NOTE: In a previous version of the article we incorrectly stated that Mzolisi (Mzo) Fukula had resigned from Parliament's employ after he refused to submit a list of more than 30 staff who reported to him so that their salaries could be docked for going on strike, and that his resignation was related to such refusal. Both these statements are incorrect and were not checked with Fukula. The error occurred in the editing process. We sincerely regret the error and any discomfort or reputational damage caused Fukula.Read the finding by the Press Ombudsman here..
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