Bitou councillor breaks his silence on support for motion

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

By Yolande Stander
Bitou deputy mayor and COPE member Adam van Rhyner on Thursday broke the silence for the first time since being at the centre of a move three weeks ago by local ANC councillors to serve a motion of no confidence in among others, Plettenberg Bay mayor Memory Booysen.

Van Rhyner now faces internal COPE disciplinary action after aligning with six ANC councillors in a call on June 20 for a special council meeting to serve the motion of no confidence in Booysen, speaker Annelise Olivier and himself.

The disciplinary action comes after Van Rhyner breached COPE's agreement with the DA where there is a coalition arrangement in hung councils. His disciplinary hearing was set to start on Wednesday evening, but the matter was postponed until July 16.

Van Rhyner said his decision to support the ANC in their efforts to replace the executive councillors had not been a spur of the moment decision. "My actions in recent days were motivated by various questionable deeds and various instances of mal administration, tender irregularities and illegal tax increases committed by the municipality since 2011. My pleas to address these issues, a lot of it which was also raised by the Auditor General, fell on deaf ears and I got tired of always hearing that the DA's brand name is more important than this," Van Rhyner said.

He added COPE had also been in turmoil and had its "own problems to deal with". "My decisions recently are in line with the direction COPE is heading in and that is that we will not be bound by either the DA or the ANC. "I will not be bound by decisions made in Cape Town's Waterfront by a few people in blue, sipping champagne and eating caviar, overlooking the yachts in the harbour. I will be taking instructions henceforth from the people of Bitou."

The move by Van Rhyner and the ANC councillors had also forced parties to turn to the Western Cape High Court.

The request for the meeting on July 1 was turned down by Olivier as she claimed; it did not comply with the municipality's rules of order. Olivier then turned to the 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 de'tat" 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 last week Monday, Judge Owen Rogers postponed the matter indefinitely.

Olivier did not convene the special council meeting last Tuesday, despite an undertaking by the councillors not to take over the municipality illegally or forcefully.

This was followed by a counter application by the six councillors - Mpakamisi Mbali, Hilda Plaatjies, Thelma Besana, Sandiso Gcabayi, Nolan Stuurman and Monica Seyisi - and Van Rhymer last week.

The councillors are seeking an order to force Olivier to convene the meeting, claiming that it is in line with the rules of order, as well as to set aside the municipality's decision to declare Van Rhymer's seat vacant and declare that he remains a councillor until lawfully unseated. They are also seeking an order to stop the replacement of Van Rhyner and labeled his suspension, pending the disciplinary hearings, as unlawful after a series of conflicting instructions as to his membership status. The instructions came from COPE's Congress Provincial Committee (CPC), but the party's constitution conferred the power of expulsion on the National Congress Committee and therefore the CPC did not have the authority to expel Van Rhymer.

On Friday the matter was postponed until July 29 for hearing as the court is currently in recess.

Yesterday the ANC councilors sought an urgent interdict to stop the IEC from filling Van Rhyner's seat, but the matter was dismissed with costs as the same relief is sought in their counter application, which is already before court.