Local businessman Rob Beer intends to file a contempt of court case against Makana Municipality if it didn't comply with a high court order on Friday 22 November.
Local businessman Rob Beer intends to file a contempt of court case against Makana Municipality if it didn't comply with a high court order on Friday 22 November.
The court order instructs Makana to come to a decision regarding 21 building plans and applications Beer has submitted.
If found to be in contempt of court, one or both the officials representing the municipality in the case could face a prison sentence.
Speaking to Grocott's Mail on Tuesday municipal spokesperson Mncedisi Boma said the municipality had complied with the court order within the stipulated time period.
"We have acted within the seven days. We have given Mr Beer's lawyers the go-ahead," Boma said.
He said the municipality's lawyers had interacted with Beer's and all the plans had been approved.
Explaining why there had been a delay in processing Beer's applications, Boma said it was due to the shortage of staff in the town planning department.
However, these comments were rubbished by Beer, who said the municipality had still not approved the plans by Wednesday this week.
Beer said he would give the municipality until Friday 22 November to comply with the court order. Failing to do so he said he would file for a case of contempt of court.
Beer said a lot of the buildings had been constructed already with the assistance of his engineers. "I can't hang around waiting for them, otherwise I would have been out of business by now," he said.
The well-know businessman said the situation was frustrating, adding that going to court was very expensive.
Beer said he could still manage to drag the municipality to court, but for small businesses this is too expensive to do. "It's sad because the city needs development," he said.
Beer turned to the courts after his attempts to get the municipality to decide whether they would accept or reject his applications had failed.
In court documents, Beer properties (PTY) Limited is the first applicant and Clublink (PTY) Limited appears as the second applicant. While the first respondent is Makana Municipality, the second respondent is Emmanuel Thembinkosi Myalato and third is Renier Adriaan Van Der Merwe.
According to papers submitted by Beer's attorneys, at some stage the plans and applications had been lying in municipal offices for over a week in the same packet they had been delivered in. Some of them are also alleged to have gone missing while they were in the municipality's possession.
The matter was brought before Judge Bulelwa Nomjana-Ndzondo on Thursday 7 November.
Nomjana-Ndzondo ordered that Van Der Merwe, who is the deputy director of the Department of Land Use and Planning at the municipality, make decisions regarding Beer's applications within seven days of the order being granted.
He was also ordered to convey the decisions to Beer by fax through Beer's attorney, and the municipality was ordered to pay the costs of the application.
