Former employee winning legal battle against Merafong
She has even gained a court order to have the local Sheriff attach some of the municipality's property to pay her back.
The Merafong City Local Municipality is continuing to spend a huge amount of money on a legal battle against its former Human Resources (HR) Manager, Nonceba Mbilini, despite the fact that they keep on losing at the cost of the taxpayer.
The matter has now gone so far that the local Sheriff of the Court has received the go-ahead to attach some of the municipality’s assets in order to pay money owed to Mbilini.
The Public Protector, Advocate Kholeka Gcaleka, ordered the Merafong mayor and municipal manager to act against Mbilini in September 2023, because she allegedly did not have the correct qualifications for her senior position. Merafong, however, blundered the process.
“Without any prior notice, the municipality just handed me a letter terminating my employment on October 26 last year. I contacted the Bargaining Council the following Monday and received a letter to attend a sitting at the Bargaining Council in November. We went there, but the municipality’s repsentatives never pitched,” tells Mbilini.
Because of this, the matter stayed unresolved and Mbilini decided to take the matter to the Labour Court. The court date was set for March 15 this year, but on the 14th the municipality filed for an urgent application to have the Labour Court not continue with the case, as they wanted to have their decision to terminate Mbilini’s employment nullified.
The Labour Court, however, refused and told the municipality to return to face Mbilini at the Bargaining Council.
“We got the new date of June 12 and 13 for the arbitration to continue at the Bargaining Council. When we got there, the municipality brought lawyers from the company Strauss Daly, but they re-fused to participate because they were not prepared. The Commissioner refused a postponement and officially ruled in my favour on June 27,” Mbilini told the Herald.
This meant that she could go back to work as her termination had been declared illegal. The municipality also had to pay her legal costs as well as eight months’ salary.
“I subsequently did return to work, but on my third day there the municipality sent security personnel to remove me from my office. The municipality said that they were taking the matter back to the Labour Court for review. According to law, they however had to attach the amount of 24 months of my pay as security. They just attached a pro forma invoice, which caused the Labour Court not to continue with their case. I decided to take the Bargaining Council’s last ruling back to the Labour Court to have this made final,” explains Mbilini.
She received the final court order in her favour on Friday, and as a result, has handed the order over to the local Sheriff to attach some of Merafong’s assets to pay the money they owe to her.
According to Mbilini she realises that the municipality will continue to refuse to take her back.
“I know that they will probably try to go back to court. Because they continue to use a team of expensive outside lawyers, their whole fight against me has cost close to R6m of taxpayers’ money so far. I do not know why the municipality continues in this manner, because they have appointed four new employees with law degrees, some of whom are admitted attorneys, to their legal department.”
Although Mbilini supplied various Labour Court and Bargaining Council judgments, the municipality did not reply to questions about the legal costs and the fact that they have employees who can do the same work as an expensive outside legal firm.
