Municipal manager hides in office
2010-02-25 23:12
Pretoria - Itumeleng Mokate, the municipal manager of Nokeng Tsa Taemane, locked herself in her office on Wednesday afternoon to avoid being arrested for contempt of court.
Legal representatives of this municipality (Rayton, Cullinan and surrounding areas) scrambled to get hold of Peet Grobbelaar, legal representative of the Buffelsdrift conservation area, while the sheriff stood at Mokate's office door with the arrest warrant in his hand.
Grobbelaar agreed to have the warrant served by Friday at 12:00 to give Mokate one last chance to comply with the court order.
The warrant for Mokate's arrest was issued on Wednesday in the North Gauteng High Court, because she and her predecessor had failed to comply with the regulations of two court orders issued on November 17 last year and January 26 respectively.
According to these orders, L Z Ngudlwa and later Mokate, as municipal managers, had to remove squatters from the conservation area. This was not done.
The squatters are living illegally on government land alongside the air force base at Wallmansthal, north of Pretoria, pending the outcome of a land claim.
The land claims commissioner of Gauteng and North-West initially provided the land to the squatters as an alternative, after they submitted a claim to the land on which the air force training centre is located.
Residents of the conservation area raised objections to the decision, and the court application for the revision has not been completed yet.