The Mossel Bay Municipality presented long-service awards this week to 167 employees with 20 years or more service with the Municipality. This followed two functions last week at which recognition was given to 110 employees and 53 employees with 10 and 15 years’ service respectively.

Although employees have until now, and are still being rewarded for long service by way of cash bonuses and in some cases additional leave, it was decided recently to recognise long service publicly and present employees with long-service certificates at special functions.

One employee, Mr Henry Scholtz, chief meter reader, has completed 42 years and 3 months of service with the Municipality. Another 5 employees completed 35 years with the Municipality, while 12 more received 30-year awards.  Employees who served the Municipality for 25 years and 20 years totalled 149.

In addressing the employees at the function, both the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Harry Levendal, who represented the Mayor as she was unable to attend the event, and the Municipal Manager, Dr Michele Gratz, attributed the successes of the Municipality in recent years to the loyalty and stability of the municipality’s labour force.

The Municipality received three consecutive clean audits and won the Western Cape Greenest Municipality competition for the past two years. It has also won several awards for performance management and socio-economic programmes, while the President singled Mossel Bay out in his State-of-the Nation address in 2014 as one of the municipal success stories in South Africa.

In her address, Dr Gratz stated that the 18 longest serving employees’ service amounts to 600 years and this is a considerable achievement. Eighteen per cent of the 915 employees have been in service for 20 years or longer and this continuity is so crucial to the institutional memory of the organisation.

At last week’s functions, 53 employees received 15-year awards, while 110 more received 10-year awards. The latter included three members of the executive management team, namely Mr Dick Naidoo, Director of Technical Services, Mr Edward Jantjies, Director of Corporate Services and Mr Harry Hill, Strategic Support Executive.

 PICTURE CAPTION

The Executive Deputy Mayor, Cllr Harry Levendal (third from left) and the Municipal Manager, Dr Michele Gratz (second from right), with employees with who have 35 years or more service with the Municipality. They are, from left to right, Johannes Folka (Streets and Stormwater), Pienaar van Zyl (Mechanical Services), Henry Scholtz (Chief Meter Reader), Geoffrey Theunissen (Administrative Services) and Andries April (Streets and Stormwater).