“The attorneys are coining it while the residents are afflicted by the lack of service delivery,” says Newcastle community activist, Neelchand Sooknanan, about the local municipality’s Labour Court matter against its Strategic Executive Director (SED) of Community Services, Vish Govender.
Sakekamer member, Ferdie Alberts, who is also a member of AfriForum’s management committee, described the legal counsel appointed by Newcastle Municipality bluntly. “Flippin useless,” said Alberts.
“The most abused vote, currently, at the municipality is the legal services vote and if you look at the legal advice being given to the municipality, it doesn’t seem worth it.”
Legal experts are referring to the case between Newcastle Municipality and Vish Govender as, “…comical, if it wasn’t so costly,” With one legal eagle calling the Newcastle Municipality, “the laughing stock of the Labour Court.”
This follows last week’s appearance before the Labour Court in Pietermaritzburg, during which the matter was expected to be finalised.
Instead, attorneys, Mr TJ Mphela and Mr Hlela, representing the Newcastle Municipality brought forward an application for the presiding officer, Commissioner Cowling, to recuse himself on suspicion of biasness. This after Cowling rejected no less than three attempts by the municipality to have the case adjourned to a later date.
Govender was initially suspended on April 4.
Govender called the allegations against him, “unsubstantiated and vexatious.” He further stated that, “…all council has to do is to peruse its own records which will support my contention that there is no evidence whatsoever to sustain such baseless allegations.”
The written representations Govender made in his defence of the allegations were never tabled before the council when the decision to suspend him was being taken. Based on the evidence before court, presiding officer, Benita Whitcher ruled in May that this was a breach of Govender’s statutory rights.
Whitcher found Govender’s suspension from his position as head of the Community Services Department to be unlawful and instructed the municipality to restore Govender to the terms and conditions of his employment.
Furthermore, the municipality was ordered to pay the costs of the Labour Court application.
Govender was suspended again for the second time on May 16, just days after the Labour Court ruling, on the same charges as before. His disciplinary hearing was scheduled to take place on July 6, but did not proceed when Govender won his case to have an independent commissioner preside over the case at the Labour Court, arguing that the municipality appointed commissioner would have easily been manipulated into presenting a pre-determined outcome.
The Labour Court hearing was scheduled to begin last week Tuesday, October 4, and continue on Thursday, October 6.
However, Mphela and Hlela asked for an opportunity to amend the charges against Govender. Govender’s attorney, Ravindra Maniklall, confirmed that the municipality’s attorneys said in court that they were not in a position to amend the charges in the time that the court made available to them.
He further confirmed that when the commissioner raised the concern that it is the right of the ratepayers to have this matter resolved expeditiously, and instructed that the case proceed, Mphela and Hlela asked the commissioner to recuse himself.
“Govender is a senior manager and the municipality is paying him a packet to sit at home. How much money is the municipality willing to waste on these delays in the court proceedings in order to keep the man from doing his job?” asked Maniklall.
Both the municipal manager, Zamani Mcineka, as well as Mphela declined to comment on anything to do with the case until the matter is finalised in court.
“Our council does not know what they are doing. They want to get rid of a senior official but they haven’t put proper charges against him. They will lose this case,” predicts Sooknanan.
Alberts agrees that the case against Govender appears to be an attempt by the ruling party to, “…get rid of the ‘opposition’ and put in their own people, and the ratepayers must pay for it.”
“The problem I have with these kinds of cases is that the ruling party and their cronies appoint investigators, but the investigators are already told to find the official guilty on a specific charge before the investigation even begins. The investigation, itself, is not done in a manner that is cognisant of all the facts. Instead, it is a matter of fighting political battles using ratepayers’ money to ensure that senior managers are aligned to the ruling party. It is the same principle that was used by the ANC,” Alberts concluded.
“What Govender should do is get a cost order against the individual members of the council’s executive committee who took the decision. Let them feel the consequences for taking these silly decisions.”
See this week’s Northern Natal News section of the Newcastle Advertiser for the full story.
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