Tshwane slaps CFO Mnisi on wrist before DA court challenge

The City of Tshwane’s controversial CFO Gareth Mnisi has seemingly gotten away with a slap on the wrist after his employer finalised the informal disciplinary process council decided on earlier this month before an urgent court challenge to the council process is heard next week (Tuesday 28 July).

Mnisi is returning to work with a final written warning after a precautionary suspension of three months.

Read:
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Tshwane CFO Gareth Mnisi suspended

The suspension was to allow for a forensic investigation into complaints following his testimony before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference, and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System.

The final forensic investigation report made findings against Mnisi, including that he failed to declare his directorships in companies and did not disclose his relationship with a construction company involved in two municipal tenders.

It stopped short of finding him guilty of impropriety, but recommended disciplinary action against him.

The city council then had to decide how to proceed.

It had a choice between two prescribed processes:

A formal process for serious misconduct, which requires a formal charge sheet and hearing that could have resulted in dismissal; or
An informal process for less serious matters.

In a chaotic and controversial special council meeting on 9 July, the council decided that the charges were less serious and warranted only the informal process that does not require a formal charge sheet or hearing, with a written warning that lapses within six months as the strongest available sanction.

Council decisions and mysterious votes …

The Democratic Alliance (DA) launched an urgent application to interdict decisions taken at the council meeting after the speaker – Mncedi Ndzwanana of the African Transformation Movement (ATM) – deducted 13 votes.

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These votes were purportedly linked to DA and Freedom Front Plus (FF+) members who earlier requested leave but nevertheless attended the meeting and voted.

There were however only 10 votes.

Ndzwanana did this regarding decisions about Mnisi’s disciplinary process as well as the suspension of city manager Johann Mettler – and in each case swayed the outcome.

Broadly, the ATM, ANC and EFF supported the informal process for less serious misconduct for Mnisi and voted in favour of Mettler’s suspension – while the DA, FF+ and the Republican Conference of Tshwane voted for the opposite.

ActionSA broke ranks with its coalition partners and voted with the DA grouping.

Read: Knives are out for Tshwane city manager

Mettler’s suspension is also being challenged by Solidarity, the union he belongs to, based among others on the procedures followed in the meeting, which it maintains were legally flawed.

The DA and Solidarity applications will be heard together on 28 July.

The metro, the council, acting city manager Dr Musa Khumalo, Ndzwanana – and in a strange turn of events even mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya (ActionSA) – are all opposing the applications.

Moya now seems to align herself with her coalition partners again.

Disciplinary process done and dusted

An answering affidavit by Khumalo dated 20 July shows that Mnisi had by then already been informed of the informal charges. Representations he made in this regard were considered; the metro took a decision and communicated it to him.

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Khumalo does not take the court into confidence about the nature of the decision, but disclosed in a Sens announcement on 22 July that the process was concluded with Mnisi accepting a written warning.

All of this in less than two weeks.

A source in one of the municipal unions expressed her surprise at the speed at which the matter was handled.

“Our members can wait up to six months to even hear what the charges against them are,” she said, asking not to be named.

End of story then, Mnisi now safe?

Cilliers Brink, former mayor and the DA’s mayoral candidate in the November municipal elections, warned in the party’s founding affidavit that once Mnisi’s disciplinary process is completed, “the consequences may become irreversible”.

“Once a senior manager has been dealt with for less serious misconduct, and a sanction, or no sanctions, has followed, rights vest.

“Mnisi would be able to contend that he has been dealt with for the conduct in question, and that he cannot lawfully be subjected to a fresh process of serious misconduct, in respect of the same conduct,” said Brink.

“He may say that to do so would be unfair and would offend against the principle that a person should not be tried twice for the same matter.

”The commencement of a less serious misconduct process therefore threatens to defeat, permanently, the ability of the Council ever to deal with the allegations as serious misconduct, which is what the forensic findings warrant.

”A completed process and rights that have vested, cannot be undone by any order made in the review (court process to follow later). Every day that passes increases the risk that the process is commenced and that rights vest.”

Judging by the Sens announcement, that might be exactly where things stand now.

Acting city manager on city manager’s suspension 

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Khumalo says in his answering affidavit to Solidarity’s application to lift Mettler’s suspension that he and the city are not challenging the arguments that relate to the controversial council meeting and the speaker’s alleged rigging of the votes.

The speaker and others will answer for that.

Khumalo says he and the city are only challenging part of the remedy Solidarity is asking for – namely the setting aside of decisions flowing from the “unlawful” suspension.

He says he was appointed as acting city manager and to set aside all the decisions he has taken since his appointment would create chaos in the city administration and affect the rights of employees, suppliers and various other third parties.

Decisions made in Mettler’s absence?

Anton van die Bijl, deputy chief executive of Solidarity, told Moneyweb the union understands that there are normal day-to-day decisions that must be made even in the absence of Mettler.

However, he finds it strange that the city is focusing on this aspect only.

“It makes one wonder what decisions they took that they are now trying to preserve.”

He says if necessary, Solidarity will challenge any major agreements or contract awards made since Mettler’s suspension.

In the meantime, Brink wasted no time expressing his feelings on Mnisi’s ‘soft landing’ …

Tshwane’s ANC/EFF/ActionSA coalition rushes through a SENS announcement notifying the financial markets that Gareth Mnisi, implicated in testimony at the Madlanga Commission, will get a soft landing and is back at work as CFO. A final written warning, they say. Market disclaimer:…

— Cilliers Brink (@CilliersB) July 22, 2026

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