CANDIDATE WITH LOWEST SCORE PICKED FOR MBABANE CEO POST

MBABANE – Councillors of the Municipal Council of Mbabane have recommended a candidate who scored the lowest in the recent interview for the position of chief executive officer (CEO).

This happened yesterday during a council meeting convened to, among other things, deliberate on the report of the consultant, who carried out the recruitment exercise.

Meeting

It has been gathered that during the council meeting, which had members of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) present; the councillors ignored the recommendation made by the consultant, as they picked a female candidate who scored 49 per cent and was placed third. They are said to have completely overlooked a candidate who had scored 87.5 per cent and had topped them all. In terms of the Urban Government Act, 1969, a council is mandated to appoint a fit person to be town clerk or CEO, upon such terms and conditions as it may determine.
The candidate chosen by the councillors once worked for the municipality a few years ago, but will not be named as the recommendation is yet to be handed over to the Minister of Housing and Development Appolo Maphalala, as per the procedure. The one who scored the highest mark is well-known in the local government circles, having worked in different municipalities before joining the corporate sector. The latest developments come at a time when reports had surfaced that there was division among the councillors regarding a variety of issues, one of them being that of the recruitment of the CEO.

Excelled

Our sister publication, the Times SUNDAY, reported that some of the councillors wanted the next CEO to have excelled during the interview, while the others were vouching for the one with the lowest mark. A councillor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was unhappy with the decision taken, as he believed that the candidate selected by the consultant deserved the post. “She has all the experience and that is why she passed the interview with flying colours. There is a report but no time was spent to deliberate on it. One wonders why the consultant was engaged in the first place, because it looks like some of us already knew who they wanted for the CEO position. It means hiring the consultant was just a waste of ratepayers’ money,” the aggrieved councillor said. He mentioned that the council needed to apply the best practice of good governance when it came to such issues.The recruitment of the CEO has had its own fair share of controversial moments.

Applied

In August last year, some of the candidates who applied for the post, along with other ratepayers, as well as some of the elected 12-member council questioned the selection of the recruitment agency by the Office of the Director of Corporate Services. They claimed Dlamini had overly undue advantage from the others as he had shown interest in applying for the position while still acting CEO.

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