TimesLIVE reports that according to newly elected City of Johannesburg mayor Jolidee Matongo, the city does not have a problem with insourcing staff, provided it makes financial sense and achieves savings for the city.

However, he cautioned that any move to insource services should be done after a study had been undertaken to ensure its viability. Speaking to Newzroom Afrika on Wednesday, Matongo said: “I think the point the late mayor Geoffrey Makhubo made, and some of us in the ANC made, is that when insourcing was done for the security guards and cleaners in the city, it was a populist stance (on the part of the DA).” He recalled that when former (DA) mayor Herman Mashaba announced the insourcing of security guards in 2019, he claimed that the city had redirected the lucrative profit margins of politically connected security companies and had directed them to the families of nearly 4,000 workers. However, according to Matongo, what Mashaba did not tell the public was that there were other costs involved in insourcing, such as providing tools of the trade and the administrative component. “In a financial year, we used to pay about R600m for security services, but with insourcing, we pay about R1.2bn. It has caused us serious problems. We are saying there is no problem insourcing, but do a study before you even say we are insourcing,” Matongo said.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ernest Mabuza at TimesLIVE

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