Durban - The eThekwini Municipality’s legal services department is struggling to fend off lawsuits against the city amounting to more than R1 billion.
The department recently told the city’s executive committee, without going into detail, that it was in court fighting 32 cases.
Department head Nokhana Moerane told exco that some cases had been resolved.
Opposition parties are seething, unanimous in blaming the “inept” department for failing to “advise the city accordingly”.
The city procurement committee raised the opposition’s ire in June last year after it emerged that the department’s bill had increased from R600 000 to R5.9 million in just nine months.
The legal services department report said the escalation was due to an increase in the number of insurance claims against the municipality that were handed over to private attorneys to resolve.
Repeated efforts to get clarity on how much the city had spent settling legal bills in the past three financial years proved futile.
An e-mail response from the city’s communication unit said the department would need “at least a week” to get this year’s financial figures.
“It will take even longer to get the last three years’ figures,” the response read. The query had been sent on Monday last week.
Cases against the city range from interdicts to allegations of metro police brutality, medical negligence claims and contractual disputes, among others. Most are pending, with just a handful resolved. Some verdicts have been in favour of the city.
The report indicates that some of the claims appear to have been abandoned by claimants.
A R528m claim by the Durban Ark Christian Ministries Church carries the biggest tag.
The city is defending allegations that the municipality failed to find alternative accommodation for its church and shelter for the homeless.
The city legal service said in the report that the matter was unlikely to proceed to court.
The matter has been dragging for more than three years.
Claims against the metro police unit amount to more than R19m and range from assault to unlawful arrest and detention and damage to property.
Slashed
The city could fork out as much as R46m should the five medical negligence claims stated in the report go against it in court.
The amount could be slashed to just under R5m after the city, in its plea, stated that the clinic being sued by two claimants did not belong to the eThekwini Municipality but to the provincial Health Department.
The city faces claims of “unfair dismissals” by employees.
Former eThekwini deputy IT head Pragasen Govender, who claims he was fired after he exposed corruption in the city, is suing his ex-bosses for R50m.
The matter has been going on since 2012.
The city is also suing a former employee for R2m for allegedly colluding to defraud the municipality.
Contractual disputes and damages disputes stand at a staggering R125m.
The highest-profile case the city is pursuing is against bus operator Tansnat, for R52 million. The case is still pending.
IFP eThekwini caucus leader Mdu Nkosi apportioned blame to the “toothless” legal department, saying it appeared to be pressured by political leaders in its decision-making. “Our stance is clear, the department is the problem.”
He said the department was not doing “justice” to its work and was full of “incompetents”.
“You can’t rely on them to make a sound decision. You find a situation where the municipality is taken to court and the matter is continuously appealed to the highest court and still loses the case.
“You ask yourself if these people are bold enough to give opinion without offending the ruling party,” he said.
The DA’s Zwakele Mncwango said despite the department’s being bloated with staff, “when we fight battles in court, we always use external (law) firms”.
“But every month we pay people who are useless; they can’t go to court and defend us. That’s why the bill is so high.
“The problem we have is that someone independent will never tell you ’there’s no case’...”
He criticised the city for sometimes unnecessarily taking matters to court, only for them to be settled out of court later.
“For instance, we spent a lot of money taking the Mpisanes (to court), until they (the city), politically, decided to settle out of court – and without coming to council,” he said.
He also cited the unravelling Virginia Airport debacle which, he said, was also set to head for court.
The department paid R12.8m to specialist lawyers last year, despite having 28 legal advisers of its own.
A report tabled before the finance and procurement committee meeting in June last year set out plans for 22 law firms to be briefed, costing more than R580 000 each.
The Mercury