Parties leading the coalition government in the City of Johannesburg have been unable to make political appointments since coming into government in November.

This, as the city forges ahead with the reversal of a council decision that saw 130 staff whose fixed-term contracts were converted and made permanent staff members.

Speaking at a media briefing on Friday,  MMC for group corporate and shared services Leah Knott said: "Parties don't have political staff. This is the crux here, that while we're dealing with really dire issues such as [Chris Hani] Baragwanath [Academic] hospital letting go of doctors and nurses, which is a real crisis, we're fighting in the media about political party support," Knott said.

During a council meeting on February 25, council resolved to rescind the conversion of fixed-term contracts to permanent posts of the 130 employees.

Last week, the city wrote to the workers, asking them to motivate why they should keep their jobs and also to assist the municipality in how to regularise their appointments, which the multi-party coalition labelled “illegal” appointments.

Joburg acting city manager Mesuli Mlandu said deadlines for workers to make representations had passed and the city was moving ahead and implementing council's decision.

"I know our notices were presented in many forms as dismissal letters, termination of contracts but Samwu [South African Municipal Workers' Union] never made representations, instead they were on TV making insults.

"There was no application to the speaker or an application to court to review the resolution of council. What stands is that as the city manager, we're bound to implement it and had I not done so, I'd be bringing council to disrepute.

"I was then left to give a directive to human resources. Any person who accepts employment in a political office, understands the philosophy and rules. It's linked to principle and term of office of the party. When party goes, it goes with it's infrastructure," Mlandu said.

He added that as per their records, only 120 employees had their fixed-term contracts converted. He said the figure of 130 came from Samwu.

He added that the employees were entitled to report to work until April 30.

"But positions will be advertised so there's no vacuum. Notices have been delivered but some refused to sign them. The workers were ill-advised by a union that doesn't have a sense of what the issues are. The issue here is compliance," he added.