PLETTENBERG BAY NEWS - The Bitou Municipality stands to have two of its bakkies attached by the Sheriff of Knysna to settle an historical cost order the Constitutional Court awarded to the Plettenberg Bay Residents and Ratepayers Association (PRPA).
The amount due from the municipality is R25 000.
The cost of an attachment order is considered fruitless and wasteful expenditure, which could have been avoided, say the ratepayers.
The ratepayers have instructed their attorneys to issue the warrant of execution against the Bitou Municipality.
The Sheriff has now been instructed "to attend to the removal of vehicles attached in terms of your return of service received earlier this week", according to the ratepayers' one attorney.
Barred
In 2019, the Bitou Council re-employed Lonwabo Ngoqoas as Municipal Manager, even though he was barred from holding the post.
The disqualification stemmed from a regulation that says no municipal employee who has been dismissed for serious financial misconduct may hold a senior office in the municipal sector within the ensuing 10 years.
When the municipality 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. The ratepayers were added to the case.
The municipality lost the case in the Labour Court, lost it once again in the Labour Appeal Court, and then failed, once again, before the Constitutional Court.
"By throwing out the case, the ConCourt finally put an end to a fight that was shocking in principle, wrong in law, and a dreadful waste of ratepayers' money," said Peter Gaylard, a former ratepayers' association chairperson, in an earlier statement.
Taxed
The ConCourt ordered the municipality to pay the ratepayers' costs.
Then Council opted to have the bill of costs 'taxed' by the court, "which is a time-consuming and expensive process to delay the payment, and the cost of taxing is paid by the municipality," said a ratepayers' association statement released last week.
"Consequently, the PRPA opted to get an attachment court order, which is a means to enforce its earlier order that the debt must be paid.
"The Sheriff in Knysna is to attach assets belonging to Bitou and then sell them on auction to raise the funds to pay the debt, plus reimburse the Sheriff's recovery costs and the auctioneers," according to the ratepayers.
The Bitou Municipality has been asked for comment and once this is received, it will be added to the article online.
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