The ruling given by judge John Smith in favour of bus operator Intercape and against transport minister Fikile Mbalula should be causing President Cyril Ramaphosa sleepless nights.
The court’s withering judgment casts a dark shadow over his ministerial choices.
Smith wrote that Mbalula’s disregard of Intercape’s plea for help “evinces a clear and fundamental misunderstanding of his constitutional and statutory obligations”.
Given how Mbalula and former Eastern Cape MEC for transport Weziwe Tikana-Gxothiwe acted, Smith said “it is manifest that nothing will happen if they are not compelled to comply with their constitutional and statutory obligations under court supervision”.
This is a high court judge saying a cabinet minister can’t be relied on to do his job, unless he’s supervised by a court.
And that’s before you consider what Smith said about Tikana-Gxothiwe’s conduct, where the “undisputed evidence [was] of an MEC pandering to rogue taxi associations and acquiescing in their criminal conduct”.
If the ANC wants to know why it’s a party on the slide, this can be traced back to numerous rulings just like this one.
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