City of Cape Town fires waste management director over misconduct charges

The City of Cape Town has sacked its urban waste management executive director Luzuko Mdunyelwa after he was found guilty on four out of six misconduct charges.

Mdunyelwa, who had held the position since September 2022, was dismissed after a confidential council meeting on Thursday, 22 August 2024. Daily Maverick has obtained exclusive access to the disciplinary outcomes.

The charges against Mdunyelwa stem from his decision to unilaterally cancel contracts with external service providers responsible for refuse collection and cleaning in informal settlements across Cape Town. He initiated a new in-house project using municipal staff for these tasks, bypassing the required legal processes.

Specifically, Mdunyelwa failed to comply with Section 78 of the Local Government: Municipal Systems Act, which mandates a thorough assessment before changing or reviewing municipal service mechanisms.

Read more: City of Cape Town could incur R1m legal bill for waste management director’s disciplinary hearing

He was charged for not following due process for the proposed alternative refuse and cleaning project. He was also charged with causing waste service contracts in informal settlements to be terminated and for incurring fruitless and wasteful expenditure. 

It appears that the municipality also wanted to explore the possibility of insourcing workers responsible for cleaning, but differed with the way Mdunyelwa executed this.

Daily Maverick reported in January 2024 that during a special closed council meeting, Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis tabled a motion to place Mdunyelwa on suspension and the council approved this.

Hill-Lewis admitted during the meeting that the municipality was not getting value for its money. About R500-million had been spent on service providers but there were still filthy areas and service delivery complaints. 

Contracts started from July 2021 until June 2023 and ran monthly. The city has also had to send in its staff to clean areas where contractors were hired to do the job. 

The disciplinary committee, chaired by Graham Leslie SC, found Mdunyelwa’s actions were a material breach of the Municipal Systems Act and noted that his testimony during the hearing was “obstructive, argumentative, and evasive”. The committee concluded that Mdunyelwa’s misconduct was serious enough to warrant dismissal.

“He refused to make the most obvious of concessions. My overall impression of Dr Mdunyelwa’s evidence was that it [was] that of an official who was highly defensive and steadfastly refused to accept accountability for any shortcomings on his part. The evidence was replete with examples of issues which were not put to the city’s witnesses, but emerged for the first time in Dr Mdunyelwa’s evidence,” Leslie found.

Mdunyelwa told Daily Maverick he could not comment on the matter as he was still exploring his legal options.

“As soon as I have exhausted all avenues, I will then issue a statement.” 

The decision to fire Mdunyelwa was not unanimous, with the ANC and Al Jama-ah opposing the council’s decision. The ANC caucus in Cape Town condemned the dismissal as “reckless and politically motivated”, warning that it would destabilise the already struggling waste management department and jeopardise community health.

“We view this as a reckless and politically motivated decision,” said the opposition leader in the council, Banele Majingo.

“His dismissal will further destabilise the already struggling waste management department, putting the health and wellbeing of our communities at risk.” 

Majingo said executive directors reported and were accountable to the city manager, who had to play an oversight role to ensure that projects were implemented timeously and without hindrances. He said Mdunyelwa was taking the fall for his political principals.

“This was the project of the MMC for Urban Waste, Ald Grant Twigg, and the month-to-month contract which he implemented did not rescue the dire situation of destruction of services in the townships.

“The MMC would not have taken such a drastic decision on his own without the knowledge and consent of the executive mayor and city manager. Therefore we are of the view that other people were involved in the decision making, which now leaves only the [executive director] to take the bullet.”

The city has not responded to Daily Maverick’s questions on the dismissal. DM