Mea launched an urgent application in the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein, challenging his suspension, but an agreement to reverse his suspension was reached outside of court before proceedings started.

The metro's legal representative, Senior Counsel (SC) Stefan Grobler, says the two parties agreed that Mea will continue his voluntary leave. After this agreement, Mea withdrew his urgent application. 

According to the agreement, Mea can now submit reasons in writing why he should not be suspended. Should he make these submissions, the council has ten days to decide about it. If the council has not decided about his suspension by the time Mea returns from leave, he will return to his position of municipal manager.  

Mea's legal counsel, Advocate René Bester, argued the council left out important steps during the suspension of Mea. She said the council could only suspend Mea after considering the results of the investigation into his alleged misconduct and administration, and she questioned the legality of the decision during a virtual meeting to suspend him. The proceedings should have only taken place at a committee sitting as laws and regulations stipulate, when dealing with a senior manager.

Adv. Bester says Friday's sitting was not about whether to vote for the suspension of her client or not but to discuss the proposal of the acting manager since Mea was on leave already. Bester adds that the council's decision to turn the session into a voting process was also wrong because it was not on the agenda of the sitting.

On Friday last week, 62 council members, including ANC, DA, and EFF members, voted for his suspension, 29 against it, whilst the Freedom Front Plus (FF Plus) failed to cast votes due to network issues.

The sitting followed violent protests which intended to shut down Bloemfontein over a lack of service delivery, the rate of unemployment, and alleged massive corruption.

As part of the negotiations to suspend the shutdown, the protesters argued that the council should be dissolved because they let corruption thrive under their watch.

The MEC for Cooperative Governance (Cogta), Thembeni Ngxangisa, threatened to take the council to court if it failed to take a resolution to suspend Mea.

OFM News