Ekurhuleni mayor vows to scrap work experience for government jobs

The mayor of Ekurhuleni, Mzwandile Masina, vowed to make his metro, the first regional district in government to scrap work experience as a prerequisite for employment.

Masina was addressing the 958 interns the City has recruited from its Work Placement and Internship Induction Workshop.

Joined in partnership by Nkosindiphile Xhakaza, Ekurhuleni's MMC for Economic Development, Masina welcomed the hundreds of interns into the next phase of their lives.

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How Ekurhuleni plans on eradicating work experienceThe Ekurhuleni mayor, known infamously for his off-centre outbursts, verbally signed a social contract with the interns, assuring them that the City would not abandon its vision to creating sustainable employment.

The social contract we want to have with you is one which seeks to strengthen our commitment to developing and growing Ekurhuleni. Your skills must be used to strengthen the State's ability to deliver quality services, he said.

He also challenged the Economic Development cluster to join him in striving towards becoming the first metro in the country that does not consider work experience a prerequisite for employment.

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All of you here you've got CVs. You have made copies, right? So, why do you need experience if you can already make copies? he asked.

We do not experience for those things. So I am saying, we will be the first. We are directing our officials to bring the item to Council to scrap it so that it is law in the City of Ekurhuleni. Once we see an advert asking for two years' experience, we will say ha-ah, who is that department, fire that person', Masina added.

New interns offered ray of hopeAs ambitious as Masina's call was, unfortunately, it was not supported by a concrete explanation of how he aimed to achieve this.

The interns are enlisted in the provincial government for a short period, providing, at best, administrative support to the various departments.

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It doesn't matter what is your background or where you come from. Just have that vision that God has chosen you and has given you these opportunities in order to change, not just your life, but the life of your family too, he said.

Tags: EkurhuleniemploymentGovernmentSouth Africa

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