Tshwane council chaos heads to court as DA accuses Speaker of rigging votes and ActionSA blames absent councillors

Tshwane is giving its sister city, Johannesburg, a run for its money as the most politically chaotic city in Gauteng, following a war of words between ActionSA and the Democratic Alliance over who was responsible for the decisions made in council last Thursday. The DA has now approached the Gauteng High Court to seek to have the council’s decisions set aside.

Here’s the latest

The DA in Tshwane has approached the Gauteng Division of the High Court on an urgent basis to set aside last week’s council decisions to suspend city manager Johann Mettler and to classify Chief Financial Officer Gareth Mnisi’s alleged misconduct as “less serious”.

In a statement, DA Tshwane Mayoral Candidate Cilliers Brink said the decision to approach the courts was not made lightly but necessitated by the seriousness of the matter.

“During the Special Council meeting on 9 July, the Tshwane Speaker [Mncedi Ndzwanana] rigged the votes that produced these outcomes.

“After councillors had cast their votes, the Speaker deliberately subtracted votes and reversed the results to achieve predetermined outcomes, suspending a City Manager who stood in the way of corruption while letting the CFO off lightly,” he said. The DA, which was expected to vote against the report, had many of its councillors on leave. It sought to rescind the nine councillors’ leave day requests and have them attend the council sitting, but the speaker marked them as absent.

Brink said the number of his party’s councillors who were absent was then subtracted from the votes against suspension of the city manager and votes in favour of classifying the allegations against the CFO as serious. In addition to asking the court to set aside the decisions made at last week’s council meeting, the DA in Tshwane has asked the court to order a new council meeting to decide on the matters.

What’s the background?

With so much happening every day, especially in the political realm, it’s easy to miss things, so let’s give you a full recap of everything you need to know. Last week, the allegations against the municipality’s CFO’s were classified as “less serious” misconduct, while its city manager was suspended on full pay, pending an independent probe into allegations of financial misconduct and maladministration against him.

The matters, unpacked.

EFF councillor Obakeng Ramabodu proposed suspending Mettler amid an investigation into serious and financial misconduct, maladministration, and gross dereliction of duty. Among the allegations is a charge relating to the appointment of Revo Spies to the Tshwane Metro Police Department (TMPD). According to Ramabodu’s complaint, Spies’ appointment to a “non-existent post” was irregular and included qualification concerns.

If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Spies is the former deputy chief of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department and testified before the Madlanga Commission about tender irregularities and mismanagement. A testimony which implicated suspended EMPD deputy chief Julius Mkhwanazi, who was recently arrested.

Ramabodu also accused Mettler of suppressing a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report into the irregular award of the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant upgrade tender. While Mnisi was implicated at the Madlanga Commission of colluding with other senior officials in the city to manipulate the awarding of tenders. Mnisi featured prominently in the testimony of suspended Organised Crime Unit member Sergeant Fannie Nkosi.

The Madlanga Commission showed WhatsApp chats between Mnisi and Nkosi speaking about active tenders in the Tshwane Municipality and exchanging lists of bidders. Following the damning revelations, Mnisi was placed on precautionary suspension.

Okay, what about the war of words between ActionSA and the DA?

The outcome of the council meeting quickly made national news, largely because ActionSA and the DA were at each other’s throats over who bore responsibility. The Democratic Alliance quickly accused ActionSA of working too closely with its coalition parties and its mayor, Nasiphi Moya, of tabling the Mettler matter, which “lacked substance” before council.

Meanwhile, ActionSA chairperson Michael Beaumont has laid siege to those claims. Beaumont said ActionSA voted against the return of Mnisi and the suspension of Mettler.

Beaumont said those items on the agenda reached the outcome they did because many members of the DA’s Tshwane caucus were on leave and did not attend the council meeting.

In a media briefing on Friday morning, Brink acknowledged that several councillors were on leave. However, when the meeting, originally scheduled to begin in the morning, was delayed until the afternoon, those councillors had resolved the matters that required their attention and attempted to withdraw their leave, but their requests were denied by the speaker.

Beaumont told /explain/ that the speaker’s decisions will be ventilated in court and that the DA and public are welcome to debate whether the speaker’s actions were right or not, but the DA “must own the fact that they failed to represent their voters’ interests by choosing to not be in council, which they are paid to do”.

When asked about the DA questioning Moya’s actions in tabling the matter before council, Beaumont said it was not up to Moya to decide whether the report was valid and that national regulation prevents her from making such a decision.

What has the mayor said?

In a statement, Moya said she understood the interest in the matter and the concerns about the potential impact of the council’s decisions on the City’s functioning. “I want to assure residents that the administration remains stable and fully focused on delivering reliable services, maintaining the City’s financial stability, accelerating infrastructure investment and improving the quality of life of all those who live in our capital city,” she wrote.

She added that the stability of the city’s government and the effective delivery of services were her “foremost responsibility”. While all this drama could be juicy for those scrolling on X, it ultimately affects residents and, in an election year, could also affect political parties vying for their favour.

Prashalan Govender is a journalist who was shortlisted for the Vodacom Young Journalist of the Year Award twice. He is focused on reporting the stories that shape everyday life in South Africa, with a particular interest in politics, economics, and social issues.