ConCourt: Final no go for Ngoqo

Update

PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The legal saga around Bitou's former municipal manager, Lonwabo Ngoqo, has run its course.

This comes after the Constitutional Court dismissed a third appeal by Ngoqo's legal team in terms of previous judgments - failed appeals in the Labour Court and Labour Appeals Court - to set aside legal opposition to his appointment with the municipality.

Ngoqo and the municipality took Western Cape MEC for Local Government Anton Bredell to the Constitutional Court to appeal decisions by the Labour Court and the Labour Appeals Court to set aside Ngoqo's appointment in February 2019 after he was dismissed by the same municipality in 2012 for misconduct.

On 17 December the Constitutional Court dismissed the application and ordered the municipality to pay the Plettenberg Bay Ratepayers' Association's legal costs after it became an active party in the case opposing the application.

Ngoqo resigned from his position late last year.

The legal tussle began when Bredell took the MM's appointment to court after exhausting all other options and challenged the legality of the actions taken by 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 10 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 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 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 last year informing the parties that the appeal had been dismissed with costs. This was once again appealed, this time through the Constitutional Court. The ruling coalition at the time decided to contest the Labour Court's finding during a special in-committee council meeting on 19 February last year.

"When the municipality, counselled by its lawyers, sought to skirt the ban by nullifying the dismissal, the MEC had no choice but to litigate in order to enforce the law. The municipality, digging in its heels, mounted a no-holds-barred defence that, despite the mountain of money and paper it threw at the case, proved entirely futile. It lost the case in the Labour Court, lost once again in the Labour Appeals Court, and has failed once again before the Constitutional Court," Plettenberg Bay Ratepayers Association chair, Peter Gaylard said.

He added that by throwing out the case, the Constitutional Court "finally put an end to a fight that was shocking in principle, wrong in law, and a dreadful waste of ratepayers' money".

"In the belief that it could help in the presentation of the issues, the PBRRA became an active party to the case. In obvious recognition of the increasingly important role that civic organizations such as ratepayers' associations are being forced to play in governance, the Constitutional Court ordered the municipality to pay the PBRRA's costs.

"By doing so, it sent out a message that conscientious activism by civic organisations generally will be judicially recognised and recompensed." Gaylard added that the court decision was gratifying as it enabled the association to take up the cudgels when necessary as a response to future misconduct and malpractice in the municipality.

Plettenberg Bay Ratepayers Association Chair, Peter Gaylard.