PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - Suspended Bitou municipal manager Mbulelo Memani has lodged an urgent application in the labour court to stop his disciplinary process from continuing and have him reinstated.

As part of the application he is also seeking a review of the chairperson's decision to dismiss his point in limine (Latin for "at the threshold", this is a preliminary legal argument raised at the start of a hearing or trial, before evidence on the main merits is heard.

It challenges technical procedural issues such as jurisdiction, standing, or evidence admissibility, that may dispose of the case entirely).

Memani also seeks a ruling that his disciplinary hearing "automatically lapsed" on 12 November 2025, in terms of the Local Government Regulations for Senior Managers.

He has cited as respondents Sydwell Sibongile Mketsu, the chairperson overseeing the disciplinary process, the Bitou Municipality and Bitou Mayor Jessica Kamkam.

Acting Municipal Manager Christopher Mapeyi confirmed that Bitou Municipality will defend the matter.

'Unconstitutional'

Memani's urgent application forms the first of two parts. The main application, to be heard later, asks that his case be reviewed. He wants Mketsu's 18 February in limine ruling (to not condone the time periods and forms contained in the rules) to be reviewed, declared unconstitutional and set aside.

Memani asks the court to rule that his own point in limine be upheld, and to rule that the time within which to start his disciplinary hearing has lapsed.

Memani's 24-page founding affidavit in support of his application said attempts to remove him were "evidently" because of his conduct to establish accountability within the municipality.

Points in his affidavit

Memani said that R4,5m irregular expenditure on procurement was flagged by the Auditor-General after his suspension in February 2024, while he was not at work, and when he returned to the office, he immediately began to investigate this expenditure.

He said he was then charged with new "trumped-up charges". He claimed the charges against him are based on superficial investigations that failed to properly investigate the facts - and the charges have to date not been read to him. He said that there has only been a pre-disciplinary hearing (in November 2025), but the actual disciplinary hearing has not commenced. Requested supporting documents were not forthcoming and he only received the list of witnesses on 12 February.

When he returned to work on 21 January, after he believed his suspension had lapsed, he was asked to leave, and by the next day, when he again tried to access the municipal offices in Sewell Street he found his fingerprint security access had been removed.

On 12 February, at his hearing, it was recorded that he would take a point in limine that, because the hearing had not started within three months of a council resolution suspending him, the time to commence the hearing had lapsed.

However, this was dismissed by Mketsu on 18 February, after which he instructed his legal team to seek an urgent review of the ruling.

He said if the hearing proceeds, he will have no basis to recover his costs. He claimed he had received information that the investigation report has already cost the municipality R1,8m. As such, he said, it would not be in the interests of justice to continue with the disciplinary hearing - which may yet be found unlawful - as it would then "constitute irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure, which is unlikely to be recovered by the municipality".

In addition, the same attorneys who compiled this report, "who are supposed to be independent", are now the evidence leaders in the disciplinary hearing against him, he said.

Based on his premise that the statutory time period for his disciplinary hearing has lapsed, he said there is a risk of the municipality wastefully expending public money on employing a municipal manager in addition to his own salary, which would amount to public money being wastefully spent.

"In those circumstances, urgent relief is warranted in the public interest," said Memani.

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