The Council of the Municipality of Makana has not been transparent about the reasons for the dismissal of the Municipal Manager, Ntombi Baart. Council held a series of secret meetings through a lengthy process that involved lawyers, charge sheets and non-disclosure agreements.
The Council of the Municipality of Makana has not been transparent about the reasons for the dismissal of the Municipal Manager, Ntombi Baart. Council held a series of secret meetings through a lengthy process that involved lawyers, charge sheets and non-disclosure agreements.
All these trappings of the legal system consumed vast amounts of ratepayers money – yet Council has not had the courtesy to inform the public how much of our money they spent.
However, it is not really a matter of courtesy that we are discussing here. We are talking about the law – and the Constitution of South Africa requires government transparency.
Chapter 10 of the Constitution is all about Public Administration, where section 195 paragraph (g) states:
Transparency must be fostered by providing the public with timely, accessible and accurate information.
Since Makana Municipality has not provided the public with timely, accessible and accurate information about why Baart was dismissed we conclude that it is acting unconstitutionally.
Let’s get this straight – we want to know the precise amount of money that was wasted!
We can safely assume that a hugely extravagant amount was spent on removing Baart. We are sure about this because if the amount were reasonable and the procedure totally legitimate, the Secret Council would have no hesitation in telling us about it the first time we asked.
The charge sheet drawn up for the disciplinary hearing against Baart was never made public. We requested access to the document, but they said it was “confidential”.
They said that since the disciplinary hearing and subsequent settlement concerned a human resources matter, they had an obligation to hold all proceedings behind closed doors.
While it is true that certain human resources issues can legally be maintained confidential, this does not hold when the contract of a public official is terminated under highly suspicious circumstances.
A charge sheet that vaguely mentions irregular service provider appointments is not transparent. We want to know who received these contracts and how much money was involved.
Investigations about failure to insure municipal assets have not told us anything about what was not insured and what the financial implications of this failure are.
If there was a failure to ensure that billing accounts were rendered, then how much did this cost the ratepayers? There were allegedly false declarations that were serious enough to be listed as misconduct. What does this mean?
If this information is not made public, we will have to consider other options such as making an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
