Ratepayers challenge Bitou MM appeal

Update

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The Plettenberg Bay Ratepayers' Association filed papers on 19 March to oppose Bitou Municipality in the Constitutional Court.

The association seeks to uphold the order setting aside the illegal re-appointment of its municipal manager, Lonwabo Ngoqo, who was dismissed from the same municipality over financial misconduct in 2012.

The matter relates to both the irregular reappointment of Ngoqo as municipal manager and the irregular payment of R781 184 to Ngoqo in February 2019.

The storm around the reappointment of Ngoqo recently gathered speed again after the AUF and ANC coalition decided to contest the Labour Court's finding last month that the reappointment was indeed illegal.

The vote was taken during a special in-committee council meeting on 19 February.
Western Cape Local Government, Environmental Affairs and Development Planning MEC Anton Bredell took the matter to court after exhausting all other options and challenged the legality of the actions taken by the council.

In terms of local government legislation, a municipal manager who is found guilty of serious financial misconduct by a disciplinary hearing must be placed on a register and is not allowed to be appointed as a municipal manager for the next ten years.

This was apparently ignored. As a check and balance, the appointment of a municipal manager must be approved by the relevant MEC for local government. Bredell objected to the approval but the council resisted, which forced the MEC to enforce his decision via the courts.

In August 2019 the labour court ruled in Bredell's favour. The court found that the decision taken by the council was unlawful. It ordered that the settlement agreement between the municipality and Ngoqo, as well as Ngoqo's appointment as municipal manager, be set aside.

The municipality then took the matter on appeal.

The judgment in that appeal was delivered via e-mail on 11 February, informing the parties that the appeal had been dismissed with costs. This is once again being appealed.

The association's chair Peter Gaylard said that a panel of ConCourt judges would now consider whether the application deserved a hearing. "If it decides it does, the application for leave will be argued at the same time as the actual merits of the appeal. If the judges decide otherwise, they will dismiss the appeal out of hand," Gaylard said.