Durban - A sheriff of the court is set to auction assets belonging to the cash-strapped eMadlangeni (Utrecht) local municipality to raise money to pay an employee who was unfairly fired.
The municipality, which is run by the IFP, is set to lose two NP200 Nissan bakkies, 1 Nissan NP300 bakkie, a Mercedes Benz Fire truck and a TLB when the auction finally gets under way.
It is feared that the auction would likely cripple service delivery in the rural municipality since it has only one fire truck and TLB which is used for services like digging graves for weekend burials.
The money to be raised from that auction would go to paying a sum of R679 000 to compensate Zamokuhle Johannes Mkhize, a former senior manager (director of corporate services) it unfairly fired in April last year.
Mkhize’s contract started on February 1, 2018, while the municipality was still under the political leadership of the ANC, and it was supposed to end in January this year.
However, in April last year, he was fired, and the new IFP administration claimed that he had reached the retirement age of 65.
Mkhize, who was fired while earning a basic salary of R67 900 a month, first took the matter to the Labour Court on an urgent basis, and the court ruled against him, saying it was not urgent.
It was then enrolled in the normal roll of the court.
From there, Mkhize took the matter to the SA Local Government Bargaining Council (SALGBC) for arbitration.
The matter was heard on August 30 and a ruling was handed down on September 28.
In the end, the SALGBC commissioner who heard the matter, Happy Khanyile, ruled in favour of Mkhize.
Despite the ruling, the municipality failed to pay him, forcing him to apply to seize the assets of the municipality.
The assets were attached in December last year, just before the festive season, but the auction never took place.
The sheriff has since advertised with the local media to announce the auctioning of the assets.
When the news about the auctioning of the assets broke, IOL asked the municipal manager, Grace Mavundla about it and she said they were challenging it.
“The municipality is not aware of any pending auction and had averted the sale of municipal assets by providing a bond of security through its attorneys and a full report has been submitted to council on this matter,” Mavundla told IOL a month ago when it started pursuing the story.
sihle.mavuso@inl.co.za
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