Cape Town - The Greater Cape Town Civic Alliance has called on deputy mayor Eddie Andrews to reconsider the City’s work-from-home policy amid concerns that service delivery was taking a knock.
The organisation’s deputy chairperson Lester September said he found it strange that the City was still encouraging staff to work from home, even though Andrews had led the call for the dropping of lockdown restrictions.
“There are growing complaints of a drop in service delivery from the City, especially related to responding to calls and e-mails. Public consultation is also a worry,” September said.
“In this regard it would be interesting to note what percentage of City staff are now fully back at work and behind their desks especially at executive level as sometimes residents feel as if the City is now a rudderless ship.”
He said City executives were batting away attempts to get hold of them with questions on public consultations generally.
“A visit to the civic centre found a whole section of the floor empty, except for a handful of people. Since then getting hold of them has been very difficult with even e-mails going unanswered,” September said.
September said that during a recent visit to parks and recreation offices, he found no staff members present. He said the transport department and street management took months to respond to a ratepayer.
City spokesperson Priya Reddy asked the Cape Argus to email a list of offices that are closed so they can investigate.
Reddy said all front-line services were fully functional and assist hundreds of clients daily and in person. She said municipal offices had remained open, but with a reduced front-line staff capacity to comply with national Covid-19 health and safety regulations.
Reddy said operational staff work across the city, where they deal with service requests.
“City officials who are not frontline workers are allowed to work flexible hours and remotely on the condition that these do not impede on officials’ ability to excel and meet service delivery demands, and the needs of the City administration,” Reddy said.
She said walk-ins in the City’s eight district offices for the period between February and August 2022 totalled 6 585 face-to-face engagements at public counters.
“As for remote working, the City allows City officials who are not frontline workers to work flexible hours and remotely on the condition that these do not impede on officials’ ability to excel and meet service delivery demands, and the needs of the City administration.”
She said remote work had benefited the City in many ways, including the reduction of external building leases.
Reddy said there had been a short period during the height of the lockdown where customer offices were closed in line with regulations. However, since the lifting of all regulations, all front-line services were now fully functional.
“During the pandemic times, the productivity measure of the City administration in general saw a 25% increase in organisational productivity at times,” Reddy said.