ORT fails to reinstate manager despite ruling

A former senior manager in O R Tambo District municipality has yet to be reinstated despite a 2016 Mthatha high court ruling that failure to permanently employ her was illegal.

Nosipho Ndabeni successfully challenged her dismissal as a manager in the office of mayor Nomakhosazana Meth.

However, she is still sitting at home and drowning in debt while someone else occupies her position.

A council resolution was taken in 2014 that all contract workers be absorbed but Ndabeni was booted out.

All other contract workers, including those who had reported to her, were permanently employed. Ndabeni had been a manager for the municipality’s Aids training information and counselling centre (Attic) since 2005.

“The post referred to as Attic previously occupied by the applicant is hereby declared a permanent post,” the high court ruled.

The municipality was also ordered to pay Ndabeni’s salary and other benefits from the date upon which such payments had ceased.

However, instead of reinstating Ndabeni, the municipality filed an application for leave to appeal the judgment earlier this year at the Supreme Court of Appeal.

The application was dismissed with costs.

Ndabeni tried to get President Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene but the presidency referred her to the co-operative governance and traditional affairs ministry.

Although the matter is not under any judicial consideration, Meth claimed the matter was sub judice.

She said they were still pursuing the matter in court.