By Mmangaliso Khumalo.
The City of Tshwane has placed five senior officials on precautionary suspension for the controversial Rooiwal tender contract.
This comes after a year-long internal disciplinary process found them guilty on one of the four charges they faced.
The charges include:
– Allowing Blackhead Consulting to progress to the next stage of the evaluation without being registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and without having the required CIDB 9CE or 9ME.
– Consensus-based decision making instead of evaluating independently as members of Bid Evaluation Committee (BEC).
– Conclusion of Blackhead Consulting services to render professional services in the circumstances where the city had already appointed a company to render professional services. Consequently, the city incurred costs of R10 999 786.96
– Evaluating the winning bidder on 1,4m belt presses width when the specification required 2m width.
City spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the five officials received precautionary suspension letters on Wednesday and were afforded the opportunity to make representations on why they shouldn’t be suspended.
“A final determination was made yesterday (Friday) to place them on precautionary suspension with full pay. The officials were found not guilty on three charges but were found guilty on one charge and the sanction was suspension for one month without pay.
“The City strenuously disagrees with the outcome of the disciplinary process and has resolved to appeal the entire outcome of the disciplinary process at the Labour Court. The City is of the view that, their continued presence at the workplace, will be detrimental to the stability of the municipality.”
Bokaba adds that the officials were charged for being grossly negligent and/derelict in the performance of their duties and that their conduct subsequently led to a breach of various legislation, policies, and codes of conduct.
“The officials were not found guilty on the first three charges but were found guilty on the fourth charge and the disciplinary board chairperson recommended a sanction of suspension for one month without pay. The city was disappointed and disagreed with the findings of the chairperson and sought legal opinion on the matter.
“The legal opinion suggested that the five implicated officials ought to have been dismissed on the finding of guilt of charge 4 by the Chairperson, in line with section 14A of the Code of Conduct, and Clause 2.7.6 and/or Clause 2.70.10 of the Collective Agreement.”
The City Manager Johann Mettler said a decision was made to suspend the employees on full pay, pending a review of the ruling, considering the nature and severity of the charges, together with the fact that the trust relationship has broken down irretrievably.
“The officials are senior employees of the municipality and majority of them on the BEC are engineers and ought to have applied themselves properly when evaluating the tender regarding the belt pressers”, Mettler said.
Meanwhile Tshwane has welcomed the Supreme Court of Appeal’s judgement, which set aside an order by the Gauteng Division of the High Court, interdicting the City from implementing its Credit By-Laws and terminating the electricity supply to the Zambezi Retail Park Centre.
The ruling refers to a case where a Sectional Title Unit owner approached the court after the City disconnected electricity supply in April 2022 due to the continuous failure by the Body Corporate to pay for services.
In court, the City contended that the High Court order was incompetent because an owner of a Sectional Title Unit in the Body Corporate of Zambezi Retail Park is not entitled in law to receive electricity in an individual capacity and the High Court’s order impermissibly interfered with the constitutional obligation on the City to ensure the collection of revenue for services it provided.
The Supreme Court of Appeal upheld the arguments and found that the High Court should not have granted the interdict.
The judgment confirmed that the obligation of customers to pay for services rendered and failure to pay empowers the City to enforce its Credit Control By-Laws.
The SCA also confirmed that Sectional Title owners cannot hide behind a dysfunctional Body Corporate to compel the City to provide services to which Sectional Title owners will not ordinarily be entitled to.