Question NW1020 to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional AffairsQUESTION

Reply:

1. No. Local authorities are not legally obligated to have in their employ, qualified registered mechanical, electrical, civil and chemical engineers. Each local authority follows a council approved organisational structure to source skills in compliance with applicable building regulations. The organisational structure will have a number of departments necessary for the municipality to perform its functions determined in accordance with the powers and functions allocated to a municipality, its integrated development plan and budget.

2. The total number of engineers and professionally registered engineers per province, as at March 2020, is provided in the table below:

Number of Engineers and Professional Engineers in Municipalities, as at March 2020
District	A: Total Number of Engineers	B: Professionally Registered Engineers	C: Total Number Technologists	D: Professionally Registered Engineering Technologists	E: Total Number of Technicians	F: Professionally Reigistered Engineering Technicians	A+C+E: Total Number of Engineering Personnel	B+D+F: Total Number of Professionally Registered Engineering Personnel	(B+D+F)/(A+C+E): % of Professionally Registered Engineering Personne
Limpopo	3	1	72	9	110	6	185	16	9%
North West	6	0	44	2	54	5	104	7	7%
Free State	2	2	11	4	38	2	51	8	16%
Eastern Cape	13	8	108	24	98	18	219	50	23%
Mpumalanga	8	0	73	10	109	4	190	14	7%
Northern Cape	3	1	30	5	65	5	98	11	11%
Western Cape	45	34	108	53	111	60	264	147	56%
Gauteng	200	65	207	71	456	110	863	246	29%
KwaZulu Natal	154	143	229	102	486	106	869	351	40%
Total	434	254	882	280	1527	316	2843	850	30%

Information on the total number of engineers and professionally registered engineers per province per municipality (as at March 2020) is provided in the annexure.

Information on the number of engineers and professionally registered engineers per branch (business unit or technical field) is not readily available.

3. The Department monitors the filling of senior manager positions and the table below presents the total number of Technical Director vacancies in municipalities as 53.

Province	Technical Services Senior Manager Positions
	Filled	Vacant	Total Number of Positions
Eastern Cape	36	3	39
Free State	15	5	20
Gauteng	7	4	11
Kwa Zulu Natal	39	15	54
Limpopo	20	7	27
Mpumalanga	18	2	20
Northern Cape	20	8	28
North West	15	6	21
Western Cape	15	3	18
TOTAL	185	53	238

4. For Engineers appointed as managers directly accountable to municipal managers, like other managers in the same capacity, the Local Government: Municipal Systems Amendment Act No. 7 of 2011 prescribes under section 56 (c) that should the position be vacant, the acting person may not act for more than three months unless the MEC extends the acting period for another three months. This measure assists to expedite filling the vacant post. Furthermore, the established District Development Model structures are encouraging and monitoring the filling of vacancies, particularly at senior management level.