The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Municipal Reporter
THE employment drive by the Bulawayo City Council has torched a storm because of a number of disparities in terms of qualifications required for junior and senior employees.
Over the past two months, the local authority has been flighting a number of job vacancies within its departments. However, vacancies within the human capital department have attracted debate after the local authority demanded a diploma qualification for a senior position, while demanding degree qualifications for a junior position.
According to a vacancy advertisement, for the position of senior organisation and methods officer, a senior position (grade 11) the local authority requires a diploma of Institute of Management Services or equivalent, while for a junior position; the human capital officer (industrial relations and recruitment), the local authority requires a Degree in Human Resources Management Development or Business Administration/ Social Science plus a Diploma in Human Resources/ Industrial Relations. For the senior position the local authority requires at least five years experience while for the junior position it requires three years experience.
However, in defending the disparities, the council’s senior public relations officer, Mrs Nesisa Mpofu said for the senior position the country did not have degree programmes that supported it.
“Generally, all positions at Grade 10 and above require a degree in the respective field. However, there are critical areas that are not supported by degree courses locally. Examples would be Organisation and Methods (Work Study) and Fire and Emergency Services. There are other areas like Real Estate Management, Project Management, Records Management, and Security that did not have degree courses until recently. Qualifications required for each job are set in our Qualifications Regulations which are amended as market supply of any skills change,” said Mrs Mpofu.
She, however, revealed that the local authority did not hire the services of a human resources consultant in drawing up the vacancies and required qualifications, claiming they had the requisite personnel to do the job.
Commenting on the matter Bulawayo Progressive Residents Association co-ordinator, Mr Emmanuel Ndlovu blasted the local authority noting that its form of recruitment was compromising service delivery.
“It is rather suspicious, no organisation can have a senior official having a lesser qualification that his subordinate. Clearly these people are trying to parcel out jobs within themselves, what they are not realising is that they are compromising service delivery,” said Mr Ndlovu.
He said there was a need for a human resources audit to be carried out, noting that it was highly likely that most of the top officials did not have the requisite qualifications.
