HERMANUS – The Municipality announced at the most recent council meeting that our Municipal Manager, Dean O’Neill, would be deployed to the George Municipality for the next three months. This follows a request by the Western Cape Minister for Local Government, Anton Bredell. It is an unusual move to say the least, particularly right before a crucial election.
Our sources tell us that the request for the deployment did indeed come from Bredell. Local politics apparently played no role in it. The only conclusion is that the DA has got serious problems in George. The question is of course whether O’Neill can fix them in three months. These things usually take time.
In the meantime, the Municipality has in a jiffy found a replacement for O’Neill in the person of Edward Jantjies, another obviously talented and highly qualified official. The uncomfortable question is of course, why a guy like him would leave a steady job for a temporary three-month stint as a stand-in municipal manager? Maybe I’m just reading too much into it.
Keep in mind that George is a level 5 local government while the Overstrand is a level three. One of the likely scenarios is that O’Neill gets stuck into George’s problems but find that it is taking longer than expected, or George could simply decide to try and entice him to stay on for a larger salary. We will have to wait and see.
What do you think?
Comments