Is Knysna imploding?

KNYSNA NEWS - By all accounts, Knysna seems to be imploding. On Thursday 28 May the acting municipal manager, Dr Michelle Gratz, suddenly resigned two-and- a-half months before her contract was set to end. She is the fifth municipal manager in Knysna to vacate this post in only three years. Her resignation was accompanied by those of chief financial officer Mbulelo Memani and Ward 10 councillor Peter Myers.

Gratz offered various reasons for her sudden departure.

She briefly mentioned family commitments, and said Knysna Municipality is "broken and paralysed".

She declared that the only future she could see for this municipality is to be placed under the administration of the province. “No one person can turn this municipality around. It will need a team and certain officials will have to be removed,” she said.

Organisation 'tries to dictate'
A significant part of her resignation address to council was also spent pointing to an unnamed "external organisation’’ with "seemingly personal agendas and questionable mandates’’ which she said "constantly tries to dictate what happens at this municipality". "They do not work through the council structures such as ward committees,’’ she noted.

Gratz did not explain in which manner or under what circumstances an external organisation managed to attain such influence over the municipality or why she did not simply ignore it if it has no such influence. She also did not offer any indication of whether she has any proof of members of the municipality colluding with this or any other external organisation as she alleges and if so, if she has lodged any formal complaints against them. Instead, she declined to elucidate her resignation statement, saying she did not "want to elaborate any further" and referred any formal complaints against municipal employees to her office, to be investigated through the existing disciplinary channels. "In terms of council’s rights as well as the staff, these matters will not be played out in the media," she stated.

So what is this mysterious organisation that is allegedly pulling backroom municipal strings and apparently wields enough influence to relieve the administration of key officials?

'The town has been captured'
In his statement to the press following Gratz’s resignation, the DA’s constituency head in Knysna, Dion George, initially offered the only indication of outside "interference’’ in municipal affairs of late: "When the previous MM, Dr Sitembele Vatala, was suspended in February, the KRA asked that the CFO be suspended as well,’’ George said, adding, “In the last week the KRA sent a letter to the Speaker as well as to Dr Gratz demanding that the CFO be investigated.” Dion also said that "the town has been captured". All are aspects that seem to pinpoint the KRA as the "external organisation’’ in question.

Then over the past week, the KRA printed a press release seemingly in response to Gratz’s resignation statement which in effect assumes that Gratz was referring to it as the offending party.

After a brief intro explaining its motivations to ensure "competent, honest and reliable’’ governance and uncover "irregularities, corruption and misuse of public property’’, it included its version of events pertaining to the complaints against former MM Vatala and CFO Memani.

'Cash crunch'
In October 2019 after the discovery that Knysna Municipality was in the midst of a serious financial crisis, or “cash crunch”, and Vatala was suspended by the council pending an investigation in the same month, the KRA "became aware that properties to a value exceeding R60 000 000, that had previously been disclosed as contingent assets, had inexplicably been omitted" from the annual financial statements by the CFO. "The MM, who is also the accounting officer, signed off on those statements," the KRA said.

The auditor general queried the removal of those assets and was provided with false and/or misleading information regarding their status, according to the KRA. "We submitted a complaint to deputy mayor (“DM”) Tsengwa against MM Vatala in connection with this matter, as well as in connection with a tender that should have been awarded to a local company but which was unlawfully awarded to a company from out of town that had tendered a price R3 000 000 higher than the local company. CFO Memane was also implicated in the second complaint," it said.

According to the KRA, the council resolved to charge MM Vatala in connection with its complaint, but it became apparent that the CFO was not being investigated. "On 21 May we submitted our complaints against the CFO to AMM Gratz and DM Tsengwa. Our first two complaints were identical to the complaint against suspended MM Vatala, and two additional complaints relating to tenders were added,’’ the statement said.

“On 27 May 2020, the day before the council meeting, we received a letter from DM Tsengwa advising us that they needed more information relating to our complaint and that it would not serve before council the following day. Although our complaint had been submitted in exactly the same format as our complaint against MM Vatala, DM Tsengwa requested a resolution, a signature and a date on the complaint,” the KRA stated.

At the council meeting on Thursday last week (28 May), council was informed that the KRA complaint would serve before the next council meeting, as long as it provided the requested information.

'We will not engage in speculation'
At the close of the meeting, Gratz, Memane and Myers all resigned. "We will not engage in speculation here as to the reasons for those resignations. Our actions, as set out in this brief memo, speak for themselves,’’ the KRA said.

This morning [29 May] we received a letter from DM Tsengwa stating, 'The complaint against the CFO will definitely be submitted to council as soon as my office has received a response to our letter dated 27 May 2020. I have already informed the office of the Speaker that we may require a special council meeting to consider same. I reiterate my previous advices that any complaint of financial misconduct is extremely serious in nature and I assure you that same will receive the required attention.

In terms of this and the accusation that the external organisation "constantly tries to dictate what happens in the municipality’’ and that it "does not work through council structures such as ward committees’’ the KRA stated on Monday that there have been no ward committee meetings during the Covid-19 crisis and that "some members of the KRA are also members of the Ward 9 committee and there has been no Ward 9 councillor since October last year".

'It is selective in its cleaning'
In her statement to council, Gratz also said: "The external organisation claims to promote clean administration. However, it is very selective in its cleaning. The external organisation demands the investigation of a staff member who has approved a plan which they do not agree with."

In response to the accusation by Gratz of being "selective in its cleaning’’ of the administration, the KRA said on Monday: “In September 2019 we delivered several complaints against the official in question resulting from serious misconduct since 2014. Only one of our complaints relates to the approval of a building plan." It proceeded to list the complaints, as follows:

• 2014 Misleading council in respect of a development application;

• 2015 Interfering with a witness in connection with a review application;

• 2016 Irregular planning approvals;

• 2018 Unlawful removal of a condition of approval;

• 2019 Unlawful approval of planning application and building plans.

"The plans were approved contrary to the provisions of the zoning scheme," the KRA continued. "This matter is currently the subject of litigation in the high court by a homeowners' association. The municipality has admitted their wrongdoing and agreed to make a contribution to the costs of the applicant. On 25 May we sent these complaints to Dr Gratz and asked her for a progress report. We also informed her of additional transgressions by the official that had come to our attention since delivering the complaint.

'Mischaracterisation'
The KRA stated that Gratz "either did not bother to read our complaints, or she simply ignored the detailed complaints and falsely accused us of demanding the investigation of a staff member for approving a plan we do not agree with". "Her mischaracterisation of our actions is unfortunate," it said.

In her accusation against the external organisation being selective in its cleaning, Gratz also mentioned that there were other "serious transgressions with huge implications for the municipality and the town which did not even raise a murmur from this same organisation". "It seems it's not the principle that matters, it all depends on the officials involved," she said. The KRA responded to this as follows: “On the one hand we are accused of dictating to the organisation, on the other hand it seems Gratz imposes a duty on us to investigate or complain about 'serious transgressions' that we are unaware of. We look forward to hearing from her what those transgressions may be, and to helping her see to it that they are dealt with, should she request our support.”

Knysna Planning Tribunal issue
Another pertinent aspect of the dispute pertains to the deposing of members of the Knysna Planning Tribunal and appointment of new ones, which the KRA alleges occurred without due process. Last Friday the KRA issued the following statement concerning this:

A special council meeting had been set down for 14 May 2020. Although there was an item on the agenda relating to the planning tribunal, there was no content. The planning tribunal hears all disputed development applications and the competence and integrity of the members are of considerable importance to Knysna’s residents and ratepayers.

The report from the acting MM was only published the day before the meeting. The report proposed the appointment of both the external and internal members, but no information concerning their knowledge or experience of land use planning was provided.

We requested an opportunity to make submissions to council regarding the proposed members, but never received a response to our request.

We learned that all the members had been appointed during a council meeting that we could not follow because arrangements had not yet been made to permit members of the public to observe and listen to virtual council meetings in real time.

While we have no concerns about the external members who were appointed, we have no information about two of the internal members, and serious concerns about one of the internal members. We therefore formally requested reasons for the decision as well as access to information relating to the process that was carried out.

Due to our concerns about the internal members, we further requested the municipality to agree to mediation once we had received the information and asked acting MM Gratz to refrain at this point from publishing the names of the members in the Government Gazette, in order to avoid fruitless and wasteful expenditure should the membership of the tribunal be altered following the mediation process.

'Tribunal now on hold'
In her parting statement to council last Thursday, Gratz mentioned that she had been "warned not to publish the names of the Knysna Planning Tribunal members in the Government Gazette because mediation with the external organisations first needs to take place". "I have also been warned that this municipality does not have resources for litigation. The planning tribunal is therefore now on hold until this organisation gets its way,’’ she said.

In its press release on Monday the KRA responded: “The AMM’s use of the term ‘warned’ is incorrect. We have formally requested reasons for the decision [to publish the names] in terms of PAJA (Promotion of Administrative Justice Act) as well as access to information in terms of PAIA (Promotion of Access to Information Act). We have requested mediation to save time and resources. Our request not to publish in the Government Gazette was reasonable and in the interest of ratepayers, as once it is published in the Government Gazette it is cast in stone and would require a court interdict and review application to change it.”

The KRA concluded its statement by saying it had no problem with Gratz as acting MM. "In the absence of justifiable proof that these accusations against us are true, Dr Gratz owes the KRA and the ratepayers an apology. Likewise if the allegations are proved to be true, we will issue same to Dr Gratz".

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