Bigwigs’ dinner leaves bad taste for junior staff

A dinner for Eastern Cape Rural Development Agency board members and executives had junior staff up in arms.

Disgruntled agency workers alerted the Dispatch this week to a Christmas party at Hemingways allegedly attended only by top management.

“We were not invited to the party because we voiced our concerns about wasteful expenditure,” one said.

Others expressed displeasure with the way CEO Thozi Ngwanya was running the agency.

ECRDA management disputed claims that the agency’s management had held an exclusive Christmas party at the expense of the taxpayer.

Agency spokeswoman Nobatembu Pako said the staff members had mistaken a board meeting for a party.

“What the ECRDA had on Monday, 14 December was the last board meeting for the year, after which we had dinner for the board and the executives who attend board meetings. There were even presentations that evening from public relations and communications, and the renewable energy sectors,” Pako said.

The Dispatch understands that a party was not held this year after employees boycotted an invitation last year, resulting in wasteful expenditure.

The agency spent about R60000 on what it called a “staff information session” on December 11 last year.

The event, at a Gonubie venue, had a huge food and booze tab but only 23 employees out of 150 turned up.

Thousands of rands worth of food was left standing – and then donated to a place of safety for children.

That organisation was able to freeze the food and feed their orphans roast lamb, beef, chicken, potatoes, vegetables with cheese sauce and dessert for days.

The Dispatch learnt that the event was canned this year because the CEO was scared of a “revolt” from staff members.