Cape Town’s city manager Wallace Mgoqi has been accused by his mayor Helen Zille as being ”instrumental” in an attempt to bring down the DA-led multi-party municipality.
”Dr Wallace Mgoqi was instrumental in assisting this attempt to bring down the elected council, proving yet again that his agenda is purely to destabilise the multi-party government and implement the African National Congress’s plan to put themselves back in power,” Zille claimed on Tuesday.
She was reacting to Mgoqi’s ”illegal” declaring to the Independent Electoral Commission of two vacancies in the council.
An allegedly fraudulent letter, sent to Mgoqi’s office on Monday and signed in the name of a certain ”M Bedford”, claimed that the executive committee of the Africa Muslim Party (AMP) had expelled the AMP’s leader, Dr Wasfie Hassiem, and one other for voting with the DA to oust the ANC from governing the city.
Hassiem and his party hold two seats of the city’s executive committee, a quid pro quo for his party supporting Zille’s mayoral nomination in a closely fought contest in the aftermath of the municipal elections.
”This [the letter] will be the fourth time that the ANC’s and the Independent Democrats’ attempts to bring down the multi-party government will fail,” Zille said, adding that the coalition was holding ”very firmly”.
Mgoqi is taking the city to court as he tries to hang onto the city manager’s post, while the multi-party coalition has voted that his one-year contract extension be revoked.
Attempts to contact Hassiem were unsuccessful, his wife saying he had gone to the police about the letter.
Meanwhile, Mgoqi wants the city to pay for his legal battle to retain his job, the Cape Argus reported on Tuesday.
Its website quoted Mgoqi as saying he had to obtain legal representation after he was served with a letter stating two legal opinions had concluded his contract was invalid.
At the last count, his legal bills amounted to more than R60 000 Mgoqi told the newspaper in an interview.
”I’m now entitled to those legal costs I’ve already paid. Why is it that I, as an employee, duly employed by a competent authority at the time, should now bear the costs of a challenge by a subsequent authority for that same decision?”
Mgoqi said chief state law adviser Enver Daniels concurred with him on this in a letter he received last week.
”Mr Daniels agreed with the opinion I should not be liable for my legal costs and said I should apply to the municipality to cover my legal costs.”
Interviewed in the Civic Centre office he is refusing to vacate, Mgoqi said legal action would not have been necessary had he been treated with respect. An attorney and former chief land claims commissioner, he said the situation could have been speedily resolved.
Had mayor Helen Zille invited him for a talk to explain that she could not work with him in the current political environment in the council, he would have responded positively.
”And surely I would have said ‘If that is your view, I will not go against it. Let’s find a way of severing this relationship’,” said Mgoqi. ”I am sure we would have then done that over a period of 48 hours at most. We would have parted ways [with] no ill feeling, no time wasted and no money wasted.”
Zille said she had made every attempt to treat Mgoqi with the utmost respect, and sent him a ”very polite letter” asking him to respond. — Sapa