This has long been coming, but the final straw was when our Portfolio Committee received a letter from a whistleblower in the Department earlier this month. I referred to it in my budget debate speech last week.
You can read my letter as well as the letter from the whistleblower below.
22 May 2018
Dr.
Dovhani Mamphiswana
Director-General:
Public Service Commission
Per
e-mail: Ayandam@opsc.gov.za / CG@opsc.gov.za/ DovhaniM@opsc.gov.za
Dear Dr. Dovhani Mamphiswana
INVESTIGATION
REQUIRED INTO HIRING PRACTICES, MANAGEMENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF
SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
The Portfolio Committee of Small Business Development
received an anonymous tip off earlier this month related to the hiring
practices, management, composition and organisational structure of the
Department of Small Business Development. The letter detailing allegations
against the Department is outlined in Annexure
A.
While it is widely reported and based on performance
outcomes that the Department has failed small businesses, it is concerning but
not surprising that employees in the Department are alleging widespread
miss-treatment at the hands of senior management.
The letter starts by outlining that the Director General
(DG) of the Department stated that in the formation of the Department of Small
Business Development (DSBD) in 2014 employees transferred from the Department
of Trade and Industry (DTI) lacked the requisite skills for their new roles in
the Department. However, the whistle-blower alleges that the entire transfer
process was done without consulting employees and that the DG’s allegations
effectively hides the Department’s failure to properly administer the formation
of the DSBD.
Additionally, the whistle-blower points out the following
concerns:
•
The
Department still lacks a complete departmental structure/organogram approved by
the Minister of Public Service and Administration;
•
Low
staff morale;
•
Career
development of individuals transferred were not considered and ignored;
•
Lack
of capacity in certain departments within DSBD;
•
Employee
grievances are not addressed by the DG;
•
Lack
of resources to fulfil mandate of DSBD.
In terms of section 196(4)(b) of the Constitution the Public Service Commission is empowered to investigate, monitor and evaluate the organisation and administration of the public service and of personnel practices of the public service. I hereby request that you act on this mandate and address the matter.
As
the urgency and gravity of this matter is evident, your prompt response and
action in this regard will be most appreciated.
The
DG’s contract of employment ends on August 31st placing a further
need to expedite this investigation.
Yours
Sincerely
Toby
Chance, MP
Shadow
Minister of Small Business Development
DA
Member of Parliament for Soweto West
Annexure A
Members of Portfolio
Committee: DSBD
I stand here today as a
whistle blower anonymously in fear of victimization, but employees of the
Department of Small Business Development in Pretoria dti Campus Block G,
concerned about the state of the department under the leadership of the
Director General Ms Edith Vries.
On the 15th of
March 2018 during the staff assembly meeting held by the DG the employees of
DSBD seeked clarity on the media statement issued by the Chairperson of the
Portfolio Committee on Small Business Development which, in part, reads as
follows:
“The DG for the first time yesterday
admitted that officials who were transferred from the Department of Trade and
Industry to the Department of Small Business Development lacked the requisite
skills for community development and have narrow perspective of co-operatives
and SMMEs. This is what creates differences between the committee and DSBD,
because the committee views development of cooperatives and SMMEs as key to
economic transformation as well as reducing dependency of poor families on
government handouts”
The DG in her response stated that “she
does not understand why the employees are aggrieved because the allegations
stated in the above media statement does not belong to her she was thrown under
the bus by the Chairperson of portfolio committee Ms Ruth Bengu she has never
said that the inherited staff of the DTI lacked the requisite skills for
community development and have narrow perspective of co-operatives and SMMEs. Therefore,
she is innocent of the allegations”
Honourable Members of portfolio Committee
of small business development, I would like to state that:
The allegations made by DG
during the Portfolio Committee meeting amounts to character assassination of
employees. We were not consulted when we
were moved from dti to DSBD. The transfer was done without consultation and
some of the units were killed and that resulted in the management deciding on
the careers of the employees without proper consultations. We have many
questions to her and among the questions we have is
•
When did she do Skills Audit?
•
Which criteria did she use to arrive at that
conclusion?
•
Is she insinuating that the dti employed
employees without requisite skills?
•
Where is her ethical leadership when is she
going to take full responsibility of her decisions?
•
She has bargained into the change management
process without proper skills to do it and also involved HR personnel who did
not have proper skills and qualification on change management and the process
failed dismally hence there is still no approved structure of the department,
three years since the inception of this department.
•
She failed to recruit change management
specialist who could have ensured that careers of employees are align to their
job descriptions and careers.
The
following issue of concerns are placed before the Portfolio Committee of the
small Business Development:
·
The structure of the department took three
years to be completed; even now as I speak there is no structure with an
approval signature of the Minister of DPSA. This resulted in employees being
unfairly moved from one position to another - all in the name of so-called
change management. Every year there is a reshuffling of employees there is no
stability and employees cannot even specializes in their work some are
misplaced and this is a clear career assassination because three years spent
doing job hoping is a three years’ experience wasted in the dustbin and it also
does not reflect well to any employer out there many employees are frustrated,
aggrieved and do not know what to do about this situation.
·
Other managers found themselves reporting to
their fellow managers on the same level which also affected the moral of all
managers involved, for example there were Chief Directors who were reporting to
their fellow Chief Directors and same thing applied to Directors, which affected
the staff morale from the onset.
·
When we made our job applications, we did so
based on our expertise and qualifications. However, our management did not take
our careers into consideration when they were doing so-called change
management. The change management process was unprocedural, undemocratic and
unconsultative. We were not consulted individually. We were forced, and even
threatened, to accept our unfair placements. In short, we were collectively
victims of an unfair labour practice.
·
In this process of misplacement in the name of
change management no training or career pathing training was offered to
employees misplaced
·
The department has incurred a huge
over-expenditure on goods and services. Many units could meet their quarter 4
targets because their budgets were exhausted without their knowledge or
courtesy of informing them.
HR
RELATED ISSUES
•
Lack
of capacity
Employees
are working under pressure, some are suffering from illnesses related to stress
levels and others have even ordered special chairs because of the backache
resulting from stress in the department - Communication and Marketing Unit, CIS
and BBSDP are the classic examples. These units are faced with a huge capacity
challenge.
There is a desperate lack of capacity in CIS, Co-operative
Unit and BBSDP, with
only five officials expected to serve nine provinces.
It appears DSBD management has no interest in the following
units: CIS, Communication and Marketing Unit, and BBSDP. We are convinced that
these Units are deliberately being set up for failure. While these Units
struggle with staff, the Department seems to be prioritising non-core Units such as Administration
(especially, Corporate Services and ODG).
• Employees
have raised their grievances internally but the DG does not address them
internally, instead she sends them externally to be addressed by Bargaining
Council. The department should only go externally if consensus cannot be
reached internally.
• The
levels of posts are not consistent and not aligned with the job evaluation
policies. Employees who find themselves performing duties at a higher level
beyond their job description were not taken care of. Many applied for job
evaluation; some more than a year go. To date, there has been no response from
HR.
• Succession planning:
Employees are not provided relevant training for up-skilling. This affects them
negatively when they apply for higher positions. PDP are also not considered,
those who apply for short course to be trained often gets responses that says
there is no budget.
MIGRATION
ISSUES
•
The DG announced that CIS, EIP, BBSDP and IMEDP
will be migrated to agencies. Why are there no proper, open and honest
discussions with staff on this matter? What will happen to the staff
responsible for those functions (more especially contract employees), etc. So
far no consultation, labour is not included in the planning processes nor
included in the migration task team. No migration for employees with labour,
“nothing about us without us”
•
Recruitment:
Advertisements for vacant posts are done nationally not internally. In many
instances, internal employees are not shortlisted. The HR policy of recruitment
is not properly complied within the Department. The DG has issued a directive
that she will oversees the process of
appointing the SMS posts, these posts, by the way were not advertised
internally whereas the DSBD recruitment policy stipulates that the posts must
be advertised both internally and
externally. To us employees what she is doing is procedural and irregular.
•
Contract positions that do not turn into
permanent as recommended by the DPSA.
•
Misplacement
of employees: Employees have been wrongly placed in
positions that do not correlate with their expertise and qualifications. And
these decisions are imposed on employees. Skills and qualification are not
considered. Surprisingly, this strange placement approach does not affect
employees in HR and ODG. It only affects units in core programmes.
•
Staff
Morale: Name shaming of the employees during the staff assembly
has demoralised staff and is regarded as emotional abuse.
•
The
structure and organogram: The organogram that took long to be
completed results in staff moving from one unit to another all in the name of
change management.
•
Preferential treatment when it comes to performance
appraisal and changing of scores.
•
PDP: staff members were placed in new
divisions/units to perform roles that are not in correlation with their
expertise and qualification. Furthermore, we were not offered training or
support of some kind to perform duties allocated to us. No training was offered, for
example, in the M&E
officials requested training from HR and were told the training course is
expensive.
LACK
OF PROPER SYSTEMS AND RESOURCES THAT ARE NEEDED TO ENSURE SERVICE DELIVERY THAT
WILL ENABLE THE DEPARTMENT TO PERFOM TO THE REQUIRED STANDARD
•
In the incentive grants units, officials are
faced with a challenge of an IT system that will enable them to pay grants to
the beneficiariess. The issue was raised with the DG. However, the DG blamed
officials instead of intervening and coming up with a system that will enable
them to work. The unit still depends on DTI for assistance, for example there
is only one ASD in the DTI allocated to assist them with payment and processing
of applications. The dti system is very old and now dysfunctional. So far if
you can visit the unit you will find that there are files laying all over no
proper recording system, clients are complaining about the missing applications
and CIS finds it difficult to retrieve or find those files, it all boils down
to lack of systems needed to record the application and process the
applications
•
The delay in the filling of vacant posts is an
issue of concern as we are overworked.
•
There is lack of capacity in IT Unit one
Director and 1 Deputy Director responsible for the whole department. The
service of the IT frustrates the employees. For example in DTI when one
experience IT related problem you call and immediately the problem is solved
without waiting for an hour or 30 minutes. The process of requesting for an IT
assistance is longer because you have to log a call to a service provider SETA
from there 1 person in IT will come and assist meaning if there are more than
10 people with IT challenges they should wait for one person to come and
assist, that delays service delivery and performance
•
The Director General has failed to appoint DDGs.The Chief Director HR lack
necessary expertise to finalise the structure, fill in vacant posts and also
manage the change management system according following proper procedures
Employees of the department have lost confidence in Ms
Edith Vries
As
a whistle blower have written to you (Members of Portfolio Committee) to
request for your intervention we are willing to testify should you call an
staff assembly meeting or special inquiry.
Once
more your intervention will be highly appreciated!!
Thank you
You’re sincerely anonymous!!
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