The sacked municipal manager at the Bojanala district municipality in the North West has come out guns blazing.
Letlhogonolo Fourie said the municipality fired him for preventing it from misusing municipal funds.
Fourie was fired on August 30, nearly a year after being placed on precautionary suspension on September 29, 2023.
In a statement, the municipality said the decision to dismiss Fourie with immediate effect came after the municipality instituted disciplinary proceedings against him.
This followed an allegation of misconduct relating to the payment of service providers.
The service providers were implicated in forensic investigations involving R134 million erroneously transferred to the municipality in 2019.
“[An] independent investigator was appointed by the council to investigate allegations of misconduct,” reads the municipality statement.
“An investigation report was tabled to council that led to the disciplinary processes being instituted as the allegations were of a serious nature.”
Funds for election campaigns
In his response, Fourie said no one can doubt how hard he worked.
However, the problem began when he questioned the municipality’s financial processes, saying this destroyed his career.
He said his job as municipal manager has never been easy, but it became especially difficult during the preparations for the May general elections.
“I’m charged for the R134-million that happened in 2019, and at that time I was not part of the municipality. I arrived in December 2022,” he said.
“The companies that the municipality says I have paid are the companies that were appointed by the previous municipal manager.”
He added that politicians within the municipality, including one at the ANC provincial office, wanted to use money budgeted for service delivery for election campaigns.
“They suspended me because I raised R250-million in the municipality investment. When we were going to the elections, they wanted a way on how they could get their hands on the R250 million.
“So they were seeing me as a stumbling block, then they decided to shift me so that they could have someone they could easily control. They could not control me.”
He said politicians wanted the money for the electricity project for the Rustenburg local municipality and some projects at the Kgetleng local municipality.
Facing off at the CCMA
Fourie took the municipality to the Commission for Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration (CCMA).
“We are going to CCMA on September 12. They have not served me with a dismissal letter. I don’t have it with me. I heard about my dismissal through the media,” said Fourie.
“I have done everything by the book; it is just that they are politicians and they decided to fire me. They wanted my head, nothing else.”
The executive mayor, Suzan Nthangeni, called for calm, expressing confidence in the independent disciplinary team that recommended Fourie’s dismissal.
Nthangeni reiterated the municipal council’s responsibility in ensuring clean governance in pursuit of service delivery and attainment of clean audit.
