Appointment of an Acting Head of Department - North West Department of Arts, Sport, Culture and Recreation
The Office of the Premier has noted, with concern, the various reports on social media platforms as well as some mainstream media outlets on the appointment of Recreation (DASCR), alleging that the appointment in itself is irregular.
The Office of the Premier wishes to dismiss those allegations with the contempt they deserve and state the following on record;
- Mr Hendrick Metsileng is substantively appointed as Director at the North West Department of Health and has been seconded to the Office of the MEC of the Department of Arts, Culture Sports and Recreation. It is, therefore, not true that a contract Ministerial employee has been appointed in an administrative Public Service Act post.
Mr Metsileng meets the requirement to be appointed as an acting HOD and to apply for an HOD post, if he wishes, as per the DPSA prescripts. He has over 14 years of experience as a senior manager (SMS) in the public service and is in possession of a Bachelors, Honours and Masters degrees. Amongst areas that he has managed at 2 senior management are Information and Communications Technology, Information Management, Epidemiology and Research, Monitoring and Evaluation.
He was first appointed as Director Information and Knowledge Management in 2006. Later in 2006, the management of Information Technology was added to his responsibilities.
Before his appointment as Director in 2006 he was appointed as Acting Director for Information and Knowledge Management from April 2005 to December 2005.
- It is indeed true that there are three Chief Directors in the Department of Arts, Culture and Sports Development. Two are from the programmes which are;
- Sport and Recreation Chief Directorate.
- Arts, Culture, Libraries and Archives and Recreation
The third Chief Director is the Chief Finance Officer.
- Due consideration was made when appointing the Acting HOD and the following were considered:
- CFO has previously been appointed as HOD and had advised MEC not to appoint her in an acting capacity in the future. Her wish should be respected in this regard. Audits in government departments have started and it would not make sense to appoint CFO as the Acting HOD during audit period. In addition, due to the legislated responsibilities of the CFO and the Accounting Officer in the PFMA it is not the generally preferred to appoint the CFO to act as the Accounting Officer.
- Previously, the Chief Director Sports and Recreation has also indicated that it will be difficult for him to carry such a responsibility because of private matters that we will not divulge because we do not have permission to do so.
- The Chief Directorate Arts, Culture, Libraries and Archives does not have a director for Arts and Culture. Appointing the Chief Director would create a big vacuum in the chief directorate. Lastly, the person occupying this post does not meet the minimum requirements prescribed by the DPSA for appointment to an HOD post.
Consideration was also made to allow the Chief Directors to continue with implementation of their programmes instead of weakening them by appointing one of them. The challenges that the department has to deal with require a person who has been in the system but is not in any way conflicted in some of the challenges.
It is, therefore, not true that the appointment of the Acting Head of Department at the DASCR was irregular in one way or the other.
Enquiries:
Vuyisile Ngesi
Spokesperson
Office of the Premier
North West Provincial Government
Cell: 061 056 3623
E-mail: Vngesi@nwpg.gov.za
