Motsumi Mathe, who was placed on precautionary suspension as Sedibeng District Municipality municipal manager last month, has been told to report for duty as his suspension is constitutionally invalid.
The Sedibeng District Municipality has been ordered to reinstate its municipal manager, Motsumi Mathe, after he was placed on precautionary suspension last month for allegedly failing to timeously discipline Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Mathapelo Masisi.
Mathe approached the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, on an urgent basis in a bid to set aside his suspension on the basis that he was given no opportunity to be heard before the decision was taken.
He also argued that his failure to respond to those unidentified reasons was material to the decision to suspend him and that the failure to specifically identify those reasons rendered his right to be heard nugatory (no legal force) and accordingly that this failure vitiated (spoiled) the suspension itself.
According to correspondence between Mayor Lerato Maloka and Mathe, the municipal manager was suspended for opposing the urgent application filed by Masisi challenging her suspension and her actual suspension, which Maloka described as unlawful.
