Municipal managers hiring their relatives for government jobs

Residents in the Kgatelopele municipality are voicing their concerns about municipal officials hiring their relatives for government positions.

The municipality is in South Africa’s Northern Cape, with a modest population of roughly 20,000. The area is a mining hub, with multiple diamond and platinum mines operating within the municipality.

Recently, the municipality has been the subject of allegations of nepotism, focused on two municipal officials.

The outrage has been sparked over the hiring of three trainee police officers, who were allegedly given special treatment in the selection process.

This is due to the three candidates being related to local officials, namely municipal manager Willie Blunden and councillor Sylvester Vukeya.

It is alleged that these officials helped their relatives get positions in the municipality’s trainee officer programme, at the expense of other candidates.

It is indicated that during the appointment process, nine out of the ten original candidates were removed in favour of the three candidates with family connections.

DA councillor Dorcas Burger said that the allegations against the Kgatelopele municipality should be investigated.

“The concerns raised by the community must be treated with the seriousness they deserve,” he said.

In response to the trainee officers’ appointments, residents of the municipality voiced their concerns, using social media to organise demonstrations.

In a Facebook post, one resident called for residents to march to the Kgatelopele municipal buildings, saying, “We want answers about the nepotism that is happening there.”

Burger said that these protests caused major disruptions to the area, bringing traffic on some roads to a standstill.

He said the municipality should address the community’s concerns and fully investigate the matter.

He called for investigations into the recruitment processes used by the traffic department, and into whether family connections played a role in some appointments.

“Council must urgently institute a full, transparent, and independent investigation to establish the facts,” he said.

“This investigation must examine both the original and subsequent recruitment processes and whether the alleged family ties between the recruits, the Municipal Manager, and the councillor influenced the appointments.”

Nepotism is a growing concern

The situation in Kgatelopele is not the only time where municipal officials have used their positions to help their relatives.

Ekurhuleni’s former city manager, Imogen Mashazi, has also been accused of using her position to help family members get government contracts.

The city’s suspended metro chief information officer, Moloko Monyepao, was also named in the allegations.

These accusations focus on two multimillion rand IT contracts, which were awarded to a firm employing relatives of Monyepao and Mashazi.

These lucrative deals formed part of larger allegations of irregularities in how the city awarded IT contracts.

Criminal charges have been brought against Mashazi for her involvement in potentially corrupt IT contract deals.

The disputes in Kgatelopele and Ekurhuleni are part of a broader trend of nepotism in South Africa’s local governments.

South Africa’s Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) reported that in 2025, a majority of people believed municipal officials engaged in nepotism.

The report found that public perception of the country’s local governments was waning, with over a quarter of citizens believing that officials often use their positions to benefit their friends and relatives.

The HSRC also noted that over 50% of South Africans believed their local government officials were involved in corruption in some form.

The allegations of nepotism and corruption are not confined to local governments; similar allegations have also plagued South Africa’s national government.

Potential corruption in the handling of government tenders, such as the allegations surrounding the Thembisa hospital project, has become common in South Africa.

During the construction of the state hospital in Thembisa, roughly R2 billion was lost to corruption and foul play.