Judge sets aside Nzimande’s call to place Ceta under administration

The gloves are off as a marathon legal battle over Higher Education, Science and Technology Minister Blade Nzimande’s decision to place the Construction Education and Training Authority (Ceta) under administration looms.

This comes after Ceta won the first round at the labour court in Johannesburg this week.

The court set aside Nzimande’s decision to place Ceta under administration and reinstated the board.

Nzimande announced his decision on January 29.

However, Ceta board and executive committee member Webster Mfebe warned Nzimande that should he decide to place the training authority under administration, this would be challenged in court.

Mfebe is also the chief executive officer of the SA Forum of Civil Engineering Contractors, the biggest levy payer in Ceta.

Read: Allegations of nepotism and favouritism: Seta in sharp battlw with Blade Nzimande

Nzimande went ahead and placed Ceta under administration.

City Press has seen the ruling made by Judge Graham Moshoane this week, which set aside Nzimande’s decision and other related directives on the matter.

Ceta and Mfebe were applicants, while Nzimande, his higher education director-general Gwebinkundla Qonde, the National Skills Authority and Sabelo Wasa, who was appointed as Ceta administrator by Nzimande, were respondents in court papers.

Ceta board member Webster Mfebe

In his ruling, Moshoane ordered that: “The decision to direct the director-general to issue and the issuance of GN 86 in Gazette No: 42991, published on February 3 2020 ,is declared invalid and ineffective in law.

The appointment of the administrator is set aside. It is declared that the suspension of the members of the accounting authority is lifted, and they may resume performance of their statutory duties and functions as members of the accounting authority of Ceta.

The instruction issued by the minister on January 23 2020, prohibiting the accounting authority to make any decision with financial implications, is hereby revoked and set aside. The minister, as a party to these proceedings, is to pay the costs of this application.”

In a statement issued by Nzimande’s spokesperson, Ishmael Mnisi, on Friday, Nzimande said he intended on appealing the ruling.

Nzimande has been advised that there are good prospects that another court may agree with his decision to place Ceta under administration.

Nzimande said Ceta has been dysfunctional for a long time and the process of putting it under administration would allow a fair process of dealing with allegations of corruption as some of Ceta board members are implicated in allegations of corruption and maladministration.

His decision was also meant to restore the functionality of the organisation.

“While individuals have a right to go to court, in this case it is clear that we may be seeing what has become the source of the rot in many state-owned entities. When some board members of state entities choose to go to court against government, it often happens when they start developing individual interests that are separate and often in conflict with the mandate of such entities,” Nzimande said.

He said often such behaviour and court challenges are informed by corrupt intentions and attempts to hide shenanigans.

Nzimande said this is what has often been at the heart of state capture, which has been unfolding in a number of state entities in recent times.

“I also want make it clear that no amount of legal or any other delaying tactics are going to divert me from getting to the bottom of what seems to be serious rot in Ceta. The intention of placing Ceta under administration is precisely to get to bottom the of these matters, nail the culprits and, in the process, help clear those who are clean but often get wrongly implicated in such matters,” Nzimande said.

He said the portfolio committee on higher education, science and technology, after its hearings on the Ceta matter late last year, urged him to take decisive action against those officials responsible for irregularities.

The committee, Nzimande said, also urged him to consider the possibility of dissolving the Ceta board owing to its failure to exercise its fiduciary responsibilities with diligence.

Responding to Nzimande’s statement, Mfebe said: “Nzimande’s application for leave to appeal, notwithstanding his right to do so, must be seen in its proper context as a travesty of justice and abuse of court processes to feed his insatiable appetite to perennially break the law.

He has done the same thing in the past, appealing and losing up to the highest court simply because he is using taxpayers’ money to pursue patently vexatious and frivolous litigation against innocent and highly performing entities such as Ceta, which achieved a clean audit outcome as per the Auditor-General’s report and had no adverse financial mismanagement and/or corporate governance findings reported, [which are] conveniently manufactured by the minister to justify appointing an administrator instead of a new board from April 1 as required by law.”

Msindisi Fengu Journalist | City Press

+27 11 713 9001 Msindisi.Fengu@citypress.co.za Media Park, 69 Kingsway Road, Auckland Park

Rise above the clutter | Choose your news | City Press in your inbox

City Press is an agenda-setting South African news brand that publishes across platforms. Its flagship print edition is distributed on a Sunday.