Question NW1 to the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs

Reply:

1. In a municipality, the salary of an engineer appointed as the municipal manager or as a manager directly accountable to the municipal manager is determined in accordance with the Notice issued by the Minister for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs published in the Government Gazette No. 43122 on 20 March 2020. The Notice determined the upper limits of the total remuneration packages payable to municipal managers and managers directly accountable to municipal managers. According to the Engineering Professionals Competency Framework in the Local Government: Municipal Staff Regulations dated 20 September 2021 published in Gazette No. 45181 (herein after referred to as Municipal Staff Regulations), a Department Head should meet Level 5 requirements of having a relevant Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) or Bachelor of Science (BSc) Engineering Degree and be eligible for registration as a Professional Engineer.

The upper limits as determined in the Notice vary greatly from lower values for municipal categorisation 1 mainly for rural low-income municipalities to higher values for municipal categorisation 10 mainly metropolitan municipalities as shown on the Table 1 below.

Municipal categorisation	Minimum	Maximum
10	R2 055 005	R3 147 538
1	R815 063	R996 188

This leads to discrepancies of salaries earned by engineers in different municipalities with different categorisation irrespective of professional registration. A professionally registered engineer in a municipality with categorisation 1 may earn less than some senior engineers not professionally registered, but eligible, in a municipality with categorisation 10.

The salaries of other engineers who are not accountable to the municipal manager is dealt with, as provided for under clause 59 of the Municipal Staff Regulations, in terms of the collective agreement concluded by the South African Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC). The three parties to SALGC are the South African Local Government Association (SALGA), the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU) and the Independent and Municipal Allied Union (IMATU). The SALGBC Task Wage Rate Collective Agreement of April 2010 provided the grades, called Task Grades, as per Table 2 below.

Task Skills	Task Grades
1	Basic	1 to 3
2	Discretionary	4 to 8
3	Specialised	9 to 13
4	Tactical	14 to 18
5	Strategic	19 to 26

 

According to eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) which is a high-capacity municipality, in EMM posts are graded and remunerated based on their job content, scope of work and grade as follows:

• Candidate Engineer as Task Grade(T) 13
• Engineer as T14
• Senior Engineer as T15
• Chief Engineer as T16

In EMM, all levels (T13 to T16 above) are required to be registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) with the Candidate Engineer level requiring eligibility for registering. At Senior Engineer level upwards, professional registration is a pre-requisite and a Scarce Skills Allowance is provided. Furthermore, at EMM, the term Engineer is not used generically for engineering personnel. A post designated as an Engineer is for those with a Bachelor of Science (BSc) qualification in the respective discipline and professional registration with ECSA. It is worth noting that the salary scales do overlap for example an official on T13 may earn more than another on T14, and one on T15 may earn more than another on T16 depending on their respective years of experience.

There is no uniformity across municipalities because of a number of reasons that include the different categorisation mentioned above as well as different powers and functions. As a result, engineers appointed in different municipalities will not be necessarily on same Task Grades nor same salary scales.

2. No statement will be made. The Minister promulgated the Municipal Staff Regulations setting uniform standards and guidelines for all municipal staff in the Government Gazette No. 45181. The regulations took effect on 1 July 2022.

End.