Africa-Press – South-Africa. The Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA) wants Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality city manager Noxolo Nqwazi to be called to order following the latter’s instruction to dissolve the board.
The MBDA and municipality have been embroiled in a power struggle since the appointment of the agency’s new CEO, Anele Qaba, a previously suspended municipal official.
The agency maintained it had the full power to appoint whomever it saw fit to be at its helm.
Qaba’s appointment came four months after he received a R3 million settlement in February 2023 following an investigation into alleged financial misconduct when he was the metro’s executive director for Economic Development, Agriculture and Tourism.
The appointment led to National Treasury withholding more than R700 million in equitable share grant funding that was due to the municipality in July, resulting in several projects coming to a standstill.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana instructed the council to provide him with a resolution of commitment the R3 million settlement would be recovered as it amounted to “fruitless and wasteful expenditure”.
Following legal advice, the municipality adopted the legal recommendations obtained from advocate Olav Ronaasen SC, which News24 perused, in a council meeting last Tuesday.
He found Qaba’s appointment was fundamentally flawed, irregular, and unlawful and advised the municipality to review it in terms of legality, alternatively in terms of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act.
Ronaasen also advised the municipality to remove the board.
Subsequently, a letter was sent to the MBDA by Nqwazi in which she informed it the board was now dissolved.
She said no MBDA board member or Qaba would be allowed to make decisions on behalf of the agency, whether of a binding nature or not, pending the implementation of the resolutions.
Nqwazi added:
However, board chairperson Glenda Perumal told News24 on Monday the agency would have no choice but to approach the High Court if Mayor Gary van Niekerk or Deputy Mayor Babalwa Lobishe did not rein in the city manager.
She said Nqwazi must be stopped with her “threatening correspondence”.
“I report directly to the mayor with correspondence through the deputy mayor, not the city manager,” Perumal said.
“She does not have the authority to dissolve the board.”
When approached for comment on Monday, Van Niekerk said Nqwazi did not have the authority to dissolve the board.
“The authority to dissolve any municipal entity lies with the executive mayor.
He added:
Meanwhile, in a second legal opinion obtained by the MBDA from advocate Richard Buchanan SC, Ronaasen’s findings were brought into question.
According to Buchanan, the regulations relied upon by Ronaasen, which led him to the conclusion Qaba’s appointment was unlawful, were not applicable to the appointment of the CEO by the MBDA.
Buchanan said the MBDA board had direct and statutory powers to appoint its own CEO.
“In doing so, it seems to me that the MBDA is entitled to formulate and apply its own procedures, provided that these are lawful.
“In the present case, I am advised that the MBDA has its own selection processes and criteria, and these were applied to the appointment of Mr Qaba.”
He added the intervention of a parent municipality, for example the dismissal of the board of such a municipal entity, was similarly constrained by the provisions of the Systems Act.
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