Cape Town - The Knysna Municipality continues to be plagued by instability and now faces legal action due to appointments in the offices of political office bearers, along with the resignation of acting municipal manager Johannes Jonkers this week.
The DA approached the Western Cape High Court on Friday for urgent relief to terminate alleged illegal employment contracts.
Knysna Municipality returned to the ANC, which governs it with the Plaaslike Besorgde Inwoners (PBI) and EFF, after the DA was ousted from power in August.
The new executive included ANC mayor Aubrey Tsengwa, PBI deputy mayor Alberto Marbi, ANC Speaker Mncedisi Skosana and Jonkers.
Knysna DA constituency head Dr Dion George said the sheriff also served papers to the seven “illegally appointed political cadres”.
George said R3 million of ratepayer’s money could not be spent on “jobs for pals” who would add no value to service delivery.
“The additional posts were created without any consideration of whether they were required or affordable, rendering the process unlawful. When the cadres were employed, no due process was followed.
“No advertisements for the vacancies were published and no shortlisting of multiple candidates occurred. The Coalition of Corruption didn’t even try to hide their blatant nepotism in employing their cronies. After the sheriff served the papers, the acting municipal manager resigned with immediate effect.
“This changes nothing and he will be held to account. The money earmarked to pay for the illegal appointments was to be sourced from the temporary employment budget that should pay for the employment of unemployed Knysna youth during the high season,” said George.
Knysna municipality spokesperson Christopher Bezuidenhout said that they had officially received a notice of motion from the DA on Monday, and later in the afternoon the acting manager, Jonkers, submitted his resignation to Tsengwa.
“He did not cite any reasons for this resignation, except that it was with immediate effect. Matters of litigation are dealt with under delegated authority. In the absence of an acting municipal manager, we cannot at this point in time respond to what actions the council will take.
An ordinary meeting of the council is scheduled for October 27, 2022, where after more information may become available,” said Bezuidenhout.
Western Cape ANC spokesperson Sifiso Mtsweni said the current coalition inherited the instabilities from the DA.
“We have not been called to court to ventilate on the matter, we are taking legal advice on this.
“We have not mandated our councillors to change the structure of the municipality.
We only advised them to exercise their discretion in terms of whoever they want to appoint and they must not go overboard so that there is no wastage of municipal resources. We want the comrades to focus on service delivery and do what the DA failed to do, which is serving everyone and not only the affluent areas.
“Coalitions in nature are coupled with instability, so the nature and character of coalition politics is something we are also discussing as the ANC at a national level, to say how best do we build coalitions that will not destabilise governance.
“However in the case of Knysna, it’s the DA who fired the municipal manager and appointed an acting person.
The problems that are experienced in Knysna (are) because of the DA. This new coalition that has only been there for a month is now trying to resolve their mess. I agree there are elements of instability and cleaning up their mess will not happen overnight,” said Mtsweni.
Cape Times