Mayor, board in tug-of-war

By Staff Reporter

QWAQWA – The Free State high court has ruled in favour of Interim board of Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality water entity Map Water when it confirmed the appointment of Willie Lefora as acting chief executive officer of the entity. Lefora is one of the seven interim member board.

The ruling which also ordered the executive mayor of Maluti-PA-Phofung Gilbert Mokotso to refrain from interfering with the duties of a duly elected board. This after the board approached the high court with an urgent application seeking the court to confirm a members of the board Willy Lefora as acting chief executive officer.

This came after Mokotso ordered the reinstatement of Peter Lephuthing and threatened to dissolve the board, unhappy with its decision to replace acting CEO Lephuthing with Lefora who is a member of the board.

The court has since confirmed the appointment of Lefora, and ordered Mokotso to pay costs in his personal capacity.

Mokotso and his co- respondents did not oppose the application.
When approached for comment by this publication, a member of the board Jabu Mokale said the board is yet to sit down and discuss the way foward following court decision.

Maluti-a-Phofung local municipality’s spokesperson Thabo Kessah the mayor is yet to study the judgement and will comment thereafter.

This publication has also learnt that the matter will be discussed in Friday’s council sitting.