The Northwest High Court has set aside the appointment of a municipal manager after finding that the recruitment process was based on falsified or misrepresented competency assessment reports.
In this judgement of 17 October the Kagisano-Molopo Municipality is ordered to re-advertise the position after the court finds assessment document were altered.
Acting Judge CSP Oosthuizen-Senekal ruled that the decision by Kagisano-Molopo Local Municipality to appoint Atlholang Eric Gaborone as municipal manager in September 2023 was unlawful and irrational and ordered that the position be re-advertised and filled through an entirely new recruitment process.
The municipality services the towns Ganyesa, Piet Plessis, Pomfret, and Morokweng.
The latest controversy began when the municipality advertised the municipal manager position in April 2023. Eleven candidates were shortlisted, and after interviews in July 2023, three finalists emerged: Tshepo Macdonald Bloom (the applicant), Eric Gaborone, and Mopedi Sam Mohale.
As required by law, all three candidates underwent competency assessments conducted by Gijima Holdings (Pty) Ltd, an accredited service provider, on 2 August 2023. The assessments were signed off by the assessor on 8 August 2023 and countersigned by a quality assurer on 10 August 2023.
However, when the municipal council met on 21 September 2023 to consider the interview panel’s report, the report presented by the mayor indicated that all three candidates had been assessed as “competent.” Based on this information, the Council resolved on 26 September 2023 to appoint Gaborone, with effect from 1 November 2023.
Bloom challenged the appointment, alleging that the report presented to Council misrepresented the true outcome of Gaborone’s competency assessment. He claimed that the authentic Gijima report did not reflect Gaborone as competent, and that the panel had either altered or falsified the outcome, thereby misleading the Council.
The process of appointing a municipal manager is not one that courts are institutionally equipped to undertake, it requires assessment of candidates against statutory competencies, consideration of interview performance, and evaluation of managerial and leadership qualities in the context of local government service delivery.
The application was supported by the Member of the Executive Council (MEC) for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, who accepted that the appointment was irregular and had already directed the municipality to revoke the resolution. However, the MEC opposed Bloom’s request that the Court substitute the Council’s decision and appoint him directly as municipal manager.
Judge Oosthuizen-Senekal found that the Council’s decision “cannot stand,” ruling that it was based on information that was “either falsified or, at the very least, not the authentic record of the competency assessments.”
“The requirement that competency reports be accurately reflected and considered is not peripheral; it is central to the legality of the appointment process,” the judge stated, finding the decision to be both irrational and unlawful under the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act (PAJA) and the principle of legality.
The judge noted that Gaborone’s arguments about incompleteness of records and prevalence of hearsay actually “underscore the defects in the municipality’s processes and the unreliability of the material that informed the Council’s decision,” rather than supporting the validity of the appointment.
While Bloom had asked the Court to substitute the Council’s decision and appoint him directly – arguing that he met all prescribed competency requirements and that the only other remaining candidate had withdrawn – the Court declined to grant this exceptional remedy.
“The process of appointing a municipal manager is not one that courts are institutionally equipped to undertake,” the judge stated. “It requires assessment of candidates against statutory competencies, consideration of interview performance, and evaluation of managerial and leadership qualities in the context of local government service delivery.”
Rather than simply requiring the Council to reconsider the appointment based on authentic assessment reports, the Court ordered that the entire recruitment process be started afresh through re-advertisement of the position.
The judge found that the recruitment process had been “tainted by the presentation of reports that appear to have been altered or misrepresented” and that these irregularities had “eroded confidence in the integrity of the process.”
Judge Oosthuizen-Senekal emphasized that recruitment processes governed by statute “must be conducted with scrupulous fairness, transparency, and adherence to legal prescripts.”
“Where the process is fundamentally flawed, the proper remedy is not to salvage it but to set it aside and require that it be re-run in accordance with the law,” she stated.
The Court ordered Kagisano-Molopo Local Municipality to pay the costs of the application, finding that the litigation was necessitated by the municipality’s conduct in placing before itself a report that did not accurately reflect the competency assessment outcomes.
No costs order was made against the MEC, whom the judge commended for adopting “a measured and constructive approach” and for not seeking to defend the unlawful appointment.
