Endumeni Municipality continues to be under the control of actors. Last week the Council was forced to have current acting municipal manager, Martin Hlengani, relinquish the post after the Department of Co-operative and Traditional Affairs, COGTA, wrote a letter to Mayor Thulani Mahaye, pointing out that he was not qualified – through experience – to hold the post.
Mr Hlengani is, COGTA said in their letter, qualified to hold his present post of Corporate Services Manager but cannot act as municipal manager.
Endumeni Municipality has a history of ‘actors’ since the municipal manager, Thabani Biyela, was suspended two years ago on various charges.
He is still being paid R80 000 a month and recently applied for a performance bonus which the Council turned down. Mayor Mahaye said at last week’s Council meeting that he ‘does not want to repeat the mistakes of the past’ and recommended that Council follow COGTA’s advice and appoint another acting municipal manager.
Mr Hlengani was appointed three months ago and recently acted on all municipal manager-related issues, including the court action issued against the Council by previous acting municipal manager, Advocate R Brijraj, whose services were terminated by Council last July.
It is not clear if the latest news that Mr Hlengani ‘is not qualified to act’ (according to COGTA) will impact on this case. Mr Brijraj is claiming unfair dismissal and is seeking damages in Rands from the Council. Reading out the COGTA letter to the Council meeting, Mayor Mahaye said ‘it appears that Mr Hlengani does not meet the minimum requirements to act as municipal manager as outlined in legislation’.
Speaker Mdluli was at pains to point out that the letter does not comment on his (Mr Hlengani’s) qualifications but rather on his experience – or lack thereof.
Mayor Mahaye proposed that Chief Financial Officer, Bonga Mkhize, be appointed acting municipal manager for the next three months while Mr Biyela’s case drags on.
The proposal was seconded by Councillor Richard Mbatha of the IFP. He commented that Council was wrong to have re-instated Mr Biyela after he had been suspended only to have Council re-suspend him following a directive from COGTA.
He said this impacted ‘badly on all other appointments made by Mr Biyela’.
Councillor Anthon Raubenheimer said while ‘they respected the advice from COGTA regarding Mr Hlengani’ he was concerned that it took COGTA almost three months to respond to Mr Hlengani’s appointment that was done in February. He felt that the present issue could have been avoided if COGTA had acted swiftly.