The Gqeberha High Court on Tuesday declared the Board of the Nelson Mandela Bay Development Agency (MBDA) lawful.
The MBDA's victory comes after a resolution by the municipal council in August last year to dissolve the board.
In his judgment, Judge Jannie Eksteen declared the board lawful and ruled that they may continue to act as such until lawfully removed from the board or in terms of the Municipal Systems Act.
Eksteen further ordered the municipality to pay the MBDA all of the money that had been withheld, as per their service level agreement.
The Metro has also been slapped with the costs of the lawsuit and two counsel.
Eksteen said: "To summarise, the Council of the municipality resolved to remove the directors of the MBDA, but it has not done so.
"The City Manager misconceived the effect of the resolution, which has resulted in the erroneous perception that directors were removed by the delivery of her letters dated 23 and 24 August 2023.
"In the result, they are the board and I am satisfied that they were entitled to convene the meeting on 12 September 2023, and to vote on the resolution to authorise the institution of the application."
Anele Qaba's response
Qaba said the board was vindicated and stated that the matter would not have escalated to this level had it not been for the "undue interference" by Councillor Retief Odendaal.
"Councillor Odendaal is the main perpetrator and should never have been allowed to in the way he did to try and destroy the one hope for the city, the MBDA due to his personal obsession with me."
He slammed Odendaal for what he calls his actions to get the metro to withhold the MBDA's funds.
Qaba noted that Odendaal, during his tenure as political head of Budget and Treasury in 2016, had "cut all security budget from MBDA".
"As a result crime spiralled out of control in Central reversing all the hard work that MBDA had done to revitalise the CBD.
"He has therefore been trying to destroy MBDA brick by brick so he can claim the credit for resurrecting it."
Qaba further said council should look into whether all those involved in the "illegal campaign" should not be held liable for covering the legal costs.
The background
The municipality's displeasure at the appointment of Anele Qaba as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the MBDA is what gave rise to the application.
The metro filed a separate application (the review) to have Qaba's appointment set aside, which was argued simultaneously with the MBDA's application.
Qaba was appointed at the MBDA in June last year.
Referring to the appointment, Eksteen said: "The appointment was, to put it at its lowest, controversial."
On 28 June, mere days after his appointment, the National Treasury wrote to the City Manager stating that Qaba, who had previously been employed as Executive Director: Economic Development, Tourism, and Agriculture in the municipality had been suspended in June 2022 due to allegations of gross misconduct relating to supply chain management process.
No disciplinary processes were instituted and Qaba vacated his office in February 2023 after reaching a R3 m settlement agreement with the metro.
Treasury subsequently advised the municipality to suspend Qaba's appointment as CEO of the MBDA and advised them to take heed, to avoid any form of penalty as it relates to the withholding of conditional grants allocated in terms of the Division of Revenue Act.
According to court documents, Treasury persisted in its stance and declined to transfer the funds due to the municipality.
Treasury's sentiment was echoed by The Minister of Finance, Enoch Godongwana.
In a letter written to Mayor Gary van Niekerk, Godongwana said:
The metro abided by Treasury's directive, until the outcome of the case on Tuesday.
