The North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Premier and Finance has expressed disappointment with the provincial government’s failure to ensure gender equity in senior appointments.
This emerged during an oversight meeting with the Office of the Premier on employment equity in senior management, particularly amongst Deputy Directors-General (DDGs) and Heads of Department (HODs).
The committee highlighted that out of the 12 HODs across the province, only one is a woman, Kgomotso Mahlobo from the Department of Human Settlements.
Speaking to Newsnote, the committee Chairperson Nathan Oliphant said that it’s unacceptable that a government led by a majority female Executive Council, six women out of ten, has failed to reflect that same commitment in its top administrative appointments.
“Out of the 11 DDG posts who are not HODs in departments, eight are filled, six by African men, one by an African woman, and one by an Indian man.
Three positions remain vacant.
This clearly fails to represent the demographics of our province and shows a disturbing lack of urgency in transforming public sector leadership,” said Oliphant.
The committee highlighted that these are the same vacancies where the Office of the Premier failed to adhere and comply with recruitment requirements, which emphasized prioritizing women and persons with disabilities.
“That is why we said to the acting Premier together with the leadership cohort of the office of the Premier, they will have to expeditiously approach a competent court to set aside at least the very three appointments which they have made.
In fact, they have indicated that they have not yet made that appointment they’re awaiting the signature of the Premier.
If they have not made those appointments, they must simply stop in their track and ensure that they appoint women and persons with disabilities as they have rightfully put in their advert.
We are not going to tolerate a situation where we are not going to have people that are progressively advancing transformation in government, because then you can’t begin to advance transformation outside of government,” remarked Oliphant.
Furthermore, Oliphant criticized what he called a clear-cut deviation from the initial advert.
“This unlawful deviation from the advertised equity priorities would not only be a step backward, but a betrayal of efforts to redress historic imbalances,” concluded Oliphant.
The committee has called for a full employment equity implementation report from all departments and urged the Office of the Premier to reconsider appointments that have not yet been finalized.
