Pretoria - The much-anticipated case brought up by the ANC in Tshwane seeking to overturn the refusal by council Speaker to allow voting by secret ballot during a motion of no confidence against Mayor Solly Msimanga has been set down for November 26.
This came after an application could not be placed on the urgent court roll at the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria on Tuesday.
Msimanga said the matter could not be placed on the roll because the ANC missed its own deadline for the application to be treated urgently.
The ANC's application sought to challenge the refusal by speaker Katlego Mathebe to allow the voting by secret ballot on September 27.
The party also wanted the court to declare invalid last month's council meeting, when a motion of no confidence was tabled and defeated.
Msimanga said the matter was supposed to be heard in court on Monday "based on timelines in their own application, yet they themselves could not adhere to their own timelines".
"The ANC’s regional chairperson, Kgosi Maepa, in his answering affidavit claims to have missed the deadline to file court papers because they 'could not find the original papers… and the same was not filed at court'," he said.
He criticised Maepa for not having regard for the court’s time, saying he has exposed his panic in the process "if the claims of misplacing the papers are indeed to be believed".
"We reassert that Maepa’s urgent application in this regard is without basis and a desperate attempt to use the courts to usurp processes of Council.
"In their application they fail to make any coherent representations about what irreparable damage would transpire in the city in the present conditions with me as the executive mayor," he said.
Msimanga also said Maepa’s court application demonstrated the desperation, with which he wanted to be the next mayor.
Maepa refuted claims that he missed the deadline, saying it was a blue lie.
He said it was in fact Msimanga, who missed the deadline after he asked for more time to file papers.
Maepa said the matter came before the deputy judge president with the legal representatives of the ANC, the speaker, executive mayor and the DA present.
"The matter was postponed to November 26 and 27 as it required a special allocation and the application is set down for two days as a special allocation," he said.