The Democratic Alliance (DA) is of the view that the delayed permission granted to suspended Sol Plaatje Municipal Manager, Goolam Akharwaray, and Chief Financial Officer, Lydia Mahloko, to return to work this coming Monday, comes well after the fact and has caused irreparable damage to the institution.
The management duo were suspended following the Kimberley shutdown that was brought on by the controversial R260 electricity tariff in 2018. What then happened was that matters seemingly got conflated with the controversial 106 report, which continues to remain unresolved in the eyes of the opposition, as we have yet to be informed of any finality on the matters contained herein.
The fact of the matter, however, is that the suspensions had nothing to do with the section 106 report. Hence, the interdict that was granted in respect of this report should in no way have impacted on straightforward disciplinary processes unfolding in respect of the R260 tariff.
The Municipal Systems Act clearly states that if a senior manager is suspended, a disciplinary hearing must commence within three months after the date of suspension, failing which the suspension will automatically lapse. The period of three months may further not be extended in council.
Clearly, this has not been the case in Sol Plaatje, where three months turned into a costly three years, and resulted in severe instability that has seen the municipality go from bad to worse, to near collapse in a very short space of time.
It was for these reasons that the DA initiated engagements with the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA) and the South Africa Local Government Association (SALGA), to interrogate the validity of the prolonged suspensions. Now that the suspensions have officially been lifted, we cannot however just leave the matter there.
The estimated cost of the illegal suspensions is in the region of R8 million, for the salary payments of the MM and CFO, and also numerous acting stand-ins in these positions. This is nothing less than fruitless and wasteful expenditure. The cost is also substantially more, when considering the drastic decline in the state of the municipality over the three-year period.
The DA has therefore requested the Speaker to initiate a session for council to conduct a post-mortem of the matter. In this regard, we specifically require the finer details in respect of the exact costs and the damages incurred over the past three years. We also need to be briefed on the actual court settlement as mentioned in the media, so that we can get to grips with how it was possible that the suspensions were so unduly delayed.
Someone needs to be held accountable and measures need to be put in place to ensure that there is full compliance in disciplinary processes moving forward.