Bitou ANC go to court over special council meeting

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

Bitou ANC councillors have turned to the Western Cape High Court after the municipality's speaker failed on Tuesday to convene a special council meeting, called by a majority of councillors.
The councillors' legal team will be filing an application to force speaker Annelise Olivier to convene the meeting and will also be seeking a cost order against her.

This follows a call by six ANC councillors and deputy major Adam van Rhyner of COPE on June 20 for a special council meeting on Tuesday to serve a motion of no confidence in mayor Memory Booysen, Olivier and Van Rhyner and if accepted, replace the three.

There was an attempt to move the meeting to Friday, but this was turned down as the municipality's rules of order require the request to be made six working days ahead of the meeting. There were also issues around Van Rhyner's suspension by COPE last week and whether this prevented him from participating in council and party activities. He was suspended after breaching COPE's agreement with the DA where there is a coalition arrangement in hung councils.

Olivier then turned to the Western Cape High Court to stop the meeting from taking place and in court documents indicated that the application was an urgent matter as fears existed of a "coup d'etat" at local government level. She further added that the "situation in Plettenberg Bay is extremely tense" and unless relief was granted and the meeting went ahead, she feared the ANC councillors and their supporters would attempt to physically, and if necessary, violently remove her and Booysen from the offices, suspend the municipal manager, intimidate staff and unlawfully gain access to municipal funds.

Although the matter was set down for Monday 4.30pm, Judge Owen Rogers did not find the matter to be urgent and urged the parties to attempt to settle it out of court.
Olivier did not convene the special council meeting on Tuesday, despite an undertaking by the councillors not to take over the municipality illegally or forcefully.

The councillors through their legal representative Hardy Mills indicated that they would therefore not only be opposing Olivier's application, but also file a counter application to force her to convene the meeting - which they believe is legal and is in line with municipal rules of order. They are also seeking a cost order against her.

Late Tuesday afternoon Rogers postponed the speaker's application indefinitely and allowed the councillors to bring their counter-application on the urgent roll.
Their papers will be filed on Wednesday and the matter be heard on Friday.