Durban - EThekwini Municipality has made an impassioned call for retired engineers to “rejoin” the City’s Water and Sanitation Unit to assist with the management of its infrastructure and the training of future engineers.
The metro issued an Expression of Interest call for retired professional engineers and technologists to supplement water and sanitation engineering capacity and to provide support to engineering mentorship programmes.
Councillors in the municipality have welcomed the move, saying the unit is in dire need of input from skilled and experienced professionals to deal with the crumbling infrastructure and service delivery problems.
The programme, spearheaded by the Water and Sanitation Unit, seeks to draw from the expertise of retired engineers and technologists with Civil, Mechanical, Electrical, and Chemical Engineering skills, the municipality said in a statement.
The retired professionals would be required to provide expertise in strategic initiatives and projects, while providing support to the City’s engineering mentorship programmes, strengthening service delivery and skills transfer.
Speaking about the programme, Head of Water and Sanitation Ednick Msweli said it was not new and had been in place for the past five years.
He said it was in line with the municipality’s scarce skills policy that allows for the employment of retired persons if they have the desired skills.
“The policy provides for the transfer of skills as part of the retirees’ appointment, and this has resulted in scarce skills being transferred to engineering graduates and to the betterment of service delivery,” said Msweli.
In addition, up-and-coming engineers and technologists would receive mentorship in line with the Engineering Council of South Africa’s requirements for professional registration.
African Democratic Change (ADeC) councillor Visvin Reddy said the call highlighted the urgency of the crisis, and comes at a time when the municipality’s water and sanitation unit was faced with massive water losses, resulting in millions of rand in lost revenue.
“With over 55% of non-revenue water losses and frequent outages in the City, it is clear that current teams are struggling to cope,” said Reddy, adding that for the programme to work, City management must do away with any political interference.
Democratic Liberal Congress (DLC) leader Patrick Pillay said the call for retired engineers to assist spoke volumes of the incompetence of certain appointed officials who had not fulfilled their service delivery and operational obligations.
“The DLC views this as merely a cover-up exercise because the crises that currently exist within water and sanitation are huge and will not be resolved in this way,” said Pillay.
He said the DLC had always stated that the City lacked professional personnel in the Water and Sanitation Department, saying this was responsible for more than 50% in water loss.
ActionSA councillor Alan Beesley said the party was fully behind the initiative. “There is no doubt that there has been a significant brain drain over the years caused by poor political leaders and cadre deployment. We do have a concern that it may be too late, and a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.”
The municipality said applications for the programme are open and would close on August 11 at 11am. The opportunity was not limited to those previously employed by the City and experience in local government would be advantageous.