Bitou Municipality won't have to pay legal costs of urgent application

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

By Yolande Stander

Thanks to a Western Cape High Court decision Bitou ratepayers will not have to fork out half a million rand for an urgent application to stop a special council meeting from taking place.

Bitou mayor Memory Booysen said this week the cost of the application was about R500 000, but that this would not be coming out ratepayers’ pockets entirely.

The application was made by Bitou speaker Annelise Olivier after a call by six ANC councillors along with deputy mayor and COPE member Adam van Rhyner for a special council meeting on July 1 to serve a motion of no confidence in among others, Booysen.

She rejected the request for the meeting claiming it was against the municipality’s rules of order.

She then turned to the Western Cape High court for an urgent application to stop the meeting from taking place as she believed fears existed of a “coup de’tat” at local government level and that 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.

This was however followed by a counter-application by the ANC councillors and Van Rhymer who claimed the call for the meeting was in line with municipal regulations.

On August 26 Judge Dennis Davis found that Olivier’s application had become moot and therefore did not order costs, while the counter-application by Van Rhymer and the ANC councillors failed and Davis ordered the applicants to pay the costs.

Booysen explained that because Davis had ordered the applicants in the counter-application to pay costs, Bitou’s legal expenses for the initial application would be offset against the costs paid by them.

“At this stage we don’t know if this will cover the entire amount, but whatever the balance we (the municipality) will then have to pay.”

(Garden Route Media)