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The Tshwane Municipal Council today considered the final report of the independent forensic investigation into allegations of misconduct originally submitted by the EFF against City Manager Johann Mettler.

After thousands of pages of evidence and an independent forensic investigation spanning more than 350 pages, the EFF's attempt to portray the City Manager as guilty of widespread misconduct has ultimately not withstood independent scrutiny.

The report  clears Mr Mettler of the allegations referred for investigation and does not recommend that disciplinary proceedings be instituted against him arising from those allegations. Having considered the report and its findings and recommendations, Council resolved not to institute disciplinary proceedings against the City Manager. 

This does not mean that the investigation found nothing requiring improvement. The report identifies administrative shortcomings, weaknesses in certain City systems and areas in which stronger oversight could have been exercised by the Accounting Officer. These matters should be taken seriously and addressed but are not thenselves indications of misconduct in the context of a large metro undergoing a turnaround after many years of poor governance. 

There is an important distinction between identifying shortcomings within a large municipal administration, or areas where its Accounting Officer could have done more, and establishing misconduct by the City Manager. The independent investigators themselves recognised this distinction, finding that institutional or administrative failures do not, without more, establish misconduct personally attributable to Mr Mettler.

It was nevertheless important that these allegations were independently investigated. They were serious allegations against the most senior official in the City and the only way to deal with them definitively was to test them properly against the evidence, rather than allow allegations and counter-allegations to persist without resolution.

ActionSA's position throughout this process was therefore consistent. When the allegations were submitted, Executive Mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya was legally obliged to place them before Council. ActionSA supported an independent investigation to establish the facts, but we did not believe that the existence of allegations alone justified removing the administrative head of the capital city from office while that investigation was under way.

For this reason, ActionSA voted against Mr Mettler's suspension and proposed that the investigation proceed while he remained in office.

The outcome of that investigation vindicates this position.

Accountability requires serious allegations to be investigated properly. It also requires that conclusions about misconduct be based on evidence rather than accusation. Suspending the City Manager before that evidence had been established would have introduced unnecessary instability into an administration responsible for delivering the turnaround of the capital city.

ActionSA remains focused on supporting Mayor Moya and the work of the coalition government to stabilise Tshwane, improve basic services and continue the turnaround of South Africa's capital city.

Issued by ActionSA National chairperson Michael Beaumont