Court blow for metro officials in R21m Covid tender case

Two senior Buffalo City Metro officials implicated in alleged irregularities in aR21m Covid-19 housing tendermay finally face disciplinary action after losing an urgent court bid to stop the process against them. The Makhanda high court this week struck the matter off the urgent roll, clearing the way for the metro to proceed with disciplinary proceedings against the officials and four other employees implicated in the scandal. Metro human settlements head Luyanda Mbula and senior project manager Sandile Gqiba had approached the court in a bid to interdict the disciplinary process and have reports by theSpecial Investigating Unit (SIU)and the metro’s financial misconduct disciplinary board, which implicated them, reviewed and set aside.

However, judge Motilal Sunil Rugunanan ruled on Wednesday there was no urgency in the application because the officials had known about the SIU findings since 2022. “The point must clearly be made that it is an abuse of process on a busy motion court roll if litigants sought preferential treatment by bypassing others in the proverbial queue,” Rugunanan said. “In the applicants’ certificate of urgency and in their founding affidavit, the reason underpinning the absence of substantial redress in due course are significantly absent.

“The import of this peremptory requirement is that urgency is not there for the taking.” The judgment effectively paves the way for the metro to institute disciplinary hearings against the officials after council approved the process in January. Asked whether the city could now proceed with disciplinary action, the officials’ advocate, Justin Powers, conceded: “Yes, in theory, they could institute that DC process.” Mbula and Gqiba are among six metro officials accused of financial misconduct linked to the procurement of more than 330 temporary housing structures during the Covid-19 pandemic. The SIU and the metro’s disciplinary board both found there was sufficient evidence for the implicated officials to answer to allegations of wrongdoing. Metro supply chain management boss and former acting CFO Andile Xoseka had initially launched his own legal challenge but on Thursday told the Dispatch he withdrew from the court process.