[The cute word they use for it is “equity”. In reality, it is a Racial Quota. Jan]

Cape Town – The Western Cape government wants to renegotiate its lagging employment equity targets with Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi.

“We may not be compliant with the equity targets,” Western Cape premier Ebrahim Rasool told a media briefing on Thursday ahead of his budget vote speech.

Rasool said he would be asking Fraser-Moleketi to appoint a task team to the region to help with the “methodology” of achieving the national equity deadline of 2005.

“We are aware of the urgency of the task. We are determined to change the profile of the Western Cape in ways that are legally sustainable, morally defensible and sensitive to the needs implicit in our vision of a ‘home for all'”, read part of Rasool’s speech prepared for delivery.

Black Africans who are 29.7% of the region’s economically active population comprised only 15.8% of the province’s administration, and only 9.9% of the senior management, from director level up.

Coloured people formed 62.5% of the administration, with only 38.2% in senior management.

White people, on the other hand, formed only 20.8% of the administration, with 49% of them in senior management positions.

Most of the administration’s employees are women, 63.9%, with only 18.8% employed at senior management level.

Won’t retrench

The lack of equity was starkly illustrated by the administration’s targets to employ people with disabilities, with only 0.25% employed and a target of 2%.

The provincial administration employs 70 000 people in total.

Rasool said the province was not looking at retrenchments to achieve equity targets, but was considering what packages were available and what incentives there were for older people to retire.

“We need to find creative mechanisms,” said Rasool, adding that many of the workers were permanently employed.

The administration’s director-general, Dr Gilbert Lawrence, who would be leading the equity drive, said at the briefing that the lack of representativeness affected all 13 departments.

Lawrence said one of the first tasks would be to analyse available statistics within all departments, from head of department level downwards.

He said the administration had for several years required the equity profile of a particular department to be attached to a post that had to be filled.

“(However) this was not applied with diligence,” Lawrence conceded.

Lawrence said there were skills shortages, technical areas and capacity building that also needed to be addressed.

He said one of the “greater challenges” would be dealing with existing staff, where one of the technical ways of dealing with equity was through restructuring.

Edited by Tisha Steyn

Source: News24.Com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/New…/p>