Gauteng Cooperative Governance MEC, Lebogang Maile said that the DA has confirmed the withdrawal of the party’s court action to challenge the suspension of its two senior councillors.
Addressing a media briefing in Sandton, Johannesburg, he said that he rescinded the suspensions after receiving legal advice from senior council.
Last week, Maile suspended Joburg Metro former speaker Vasco Da Gama and his Tshwane counterpart, Katlego Mathebe, for three and six months respectively without pay.
The suspensions were related to decisions they took as speakers of the respective metropolitan municipalities.
He says: “There is nowhere that it says the MEC can’t take a decision without the council being referred to. The letter that was written to us by the DA was quoting two case laws. We did not see those case laws, we never had sight of them. That is why we sought legal counsel. The law is clear what the MEC can do. These two people, through their actions in the last two months, have clearly demonstrated disregard for the law and acted in a partisan manner.”
Maile says the matters have since been refereed to both councils.
He says: “We have since received correspondence from the DA’s legal team alerting us that they will effectively and immediately remove the matter from the court roll as you know it was on the emergency basis.”
“So in the light of the strong merit of our initial decision we have issued a written directive from to the Chief Whip of the City of Tshwane and accepted a request from the Chief whip of Johannesburg respectively. The chief whip wrote to us a letter and in that letter he said no they must initiate an investigations.”
