It is a medication with no relation to the illness for co-operative governance MEC Zolile Williams to change Nelson Mandela Bay’s governance system.
For this reason, the Gqeberha high court should make an interim interdict permanent until a review of the decision has been completed, the court heard on Thursday.
Arguing for the first part of a two-part application to ensure the DA-led coalition continues to run the city, advocate Michael Bishop, on behalf of mayor Retief Odendaal and the DA, said it was irrational for Williams to have gazetted the Section 12 notice.
If allowed to take effect, he said, it would cause irreparable harm, with no evidence that the metro’s administration was non-functional.
Williams gazetted the Section 12 notice in terms of the Municipal Structures Act on December 12.
The move would result in the removal of the DA-led coalition government and the scrapping of the city’s mayoral system of governance and replacing it with a collective executive system.
According to Bishop, should a collective executive committee be put in place, there would potentially be mayhem as it would force the ANC and DA to work together in a 10-person committee with four seats each along with the EFF and Northern Alliance.
Bishop said this would be tantamount to a committee made up of parties who did not see eye to eye and would cause more problems with service delivery, among others issues.
Coming out guns blazing, advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi, representing Williams, said the grounds put forward for the interim interdict to be made an order of the court were all speculative.
“The decision [made by Williams] is not to dissolve the municipality but to restructure it to create stability,” Ngcukaitobi said.
He rubbished claims by Odendaal and the DA that the reason for implementing a collective executive committee was for ulterior purposes, including to allow the ANC to take control of the metro.
“The DA has never provided an iota of factual evidence,” Ngcukaitobi said.
“It is all speculation, conjecture, and inference.”
Williams’ gazetting of the Section 12 notice prompted Odendaal to mount a legal fight to ensure the coalition remained in government by filing the two-part application.
Part A seeks to ensure the coalition remains in power until Part B , which seeks to review and overturn the Section 12 declaration.
The parties agreed in late December on the temporary suspension of the notice and for the coalition government to remain in place until February.
Ngcukaitobi then filed a notice of intention to strike out the affidavits by five respondents which supported the DA’s application — the Northern Alliance, GOOD, AIC, PAC and the DOP.
After lengthy arguments were heard on Thursday, judge Denzil Potgieter said he needed time to consider submissions from both parties and reserved judgment.
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