ANC not happy that Council voted to bring back Biyela as municipal manager
"It must be remembered that in some years back some of the Councillors including ANC Councillors were charged by the MEC after they unlawfully reinstated Mr Biyela. "
The ANC has reacted bitterly to the shock news that suspended municipal manager, Thabani Biyela, is back in the seat.
The ANC’s Siduduzo Mdluli blamed the DA for supporting the decision to drop the long-winded case against Mr Biyela.
“During the last Council (before the August 2016 elections) the DA was in favour of his suspension. But now they suddenly change and ask that he be re-instated.
The DA changes their tune because of their coalition with the IFP and now he is back,” Mr Mdluli said.
“This Council is running like a spaza shop. The issue to bring back Mr Biyela was not even on the agenda. They should have brought a motion forward as Mr Biyela’s case has been in court for three years. The ANC knew nothing about this until this meeting held on Wednesday.”
The meeting itself was a stop-start affair with adjournments being called several times. The issue was the MEC of Co-ooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, COGTA, application to declare null and void the contract extension of acting municipal manager, Desi Padaychee.
The High Court found that it terms of the law it was illegal to extend his contract beyond six months even though the Council had asked the National Minister of COGTA for an extension when the KZN MEC, Nomsa Dube-Ncube, never responded to the request.
The ANC wanted an adjournment as they claimed the report was not on the agenda of the meeting. The IFP/DA/EFF wanted an adjournment to check whether the judgement can be discussed in committee.
When the report was finally distributed, the ANC asked to have legal assistance to interpret it.
Mr Biyela will also serve as acting Manager for Corporate Services and Mr Padayschee is a Manager in the Manager’s Office.
More adjournments followed after which Mr Biyela was re-instated.
Mr Mdluli said the Council had spent about R1 million of ratepayers money on the Biyela’s case. He added that ‘there was court ruling where Mr Biyela was asked by the court to pay legal cost of about R600 000 after logging an appeal. ‘
“It must be remembered that in some years back some of the Councillors including ANC Councillors were charged by the MEC after they unlawfully reinstated Mr Biyela.
“The ANC will make sure that the Endumeni Council is no functioning up until COGTA intervened,” Mr Mdluli added.
This was apparent when ANC Councillors did not attend Friday’s meeting to discuss the draft budget.
Mr Mdluli agreed that this problem at Endumeni would affect the service delivery if rules and regulations were not followed. He said one of the Managers, Percy Mabilisa, who was fired by the council, was recently employed without the approval of the council and there was no report, which was presented to the council.
Mr Biyela will also serve as acting Manager for Corporate Services and Mr Padayschee is a Manager in the Manager’s Office.
