CAPE TOWN – Mayor of Cape Town Geordin Hill-Lewis has welcomed the Bishop Lavis Magistrates’ Court’s dismissal of a protection-order application by an individual, with costs.
The individual, a Bothasig resident, was found to be running an illegal business operation, which the Mayor himself had come across last year and reported, the City of Cape Town said in a statement on Friday.
It said the Mayor reported a land-use violation he personally had happened upon, a car-repair business that was being run from a house in Bothasig without a permit. In response to this the individual approached the courts and applied for a protection order, it is believed, to evade accountability.
“All citizens, including the Mayor, have a responsibility to report wrongdoing on seeing it,” said mayoral spokesperson Lyndon Khan.
He said the magistrate had found the application to be completely without merit, saying it amounted to an attempt by the applicant to prolong the business operation, one among several attempts over a period of 10 months.
Khan said neither the applicant nor his legal representative were present in court on Friday when the matter was argued and thrown out with costs.
Eric Ntabazalila, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), told TygerBurger the NPA was not involved as it was a civil matter between two parties – the individual vs the City.
