Voges given his marching orders

Decision comes day after deputy mayor’s announcement of contract extension, writes Rochelle de Kock THE board of the Mandela Bay Development Agency flexed its muscles this week and gave longstanding chief executive Pierre Voges his marching orders. The decision was taken a day after Nelson Mandela Bay deputy mayor Bicks Ndoni said Voges’s contract would be extended until August. Ndoni also told Weekend Post’s sister publication The Herald there was an understanding between the MBDA board and the city that Voges should stay on until the upcoming elections. Yesterday, MBDA spokesman Luvuyo Bangazi said the entity’s chief financial officer, Ashwin Daya, would head the agency in an acting capacity until a chief executive was appointed. Vo g e s ’s contract came to an end on Thursday. Board chairman Motse Mfuleni thanked Voges for his admirable leadership since the inception of the entity in 2004. “Throughout his tenure Pierre steered the agency admirably and can be credited with leading a team that has delivered many catalytic projects and socioeconomic infrastructure that has changed the face of the metro,” Mfuleni said. Voges declined to comment yesterday. It is still unclear if he will fight the decision, as he revealed in a letter to mayor Danny Jordaan this week he had been advised by three labour lawyers that non-renewal of his contract would amount to an unfair dismissal. While the board had previously decided to keep Voges on a month-to-month contract, it is believed the letter – also sent to Ndoni and acting city manager Johann Mettler – is what spurred their decision to let him go. In the letter, Voges wrote that the MBDA was unstable, which was placing funding from external sources in jeopardy. “To say the company is in a very unstable situation at the moment is an understatement. “This instability does not only relate to the position of myself as CEO, but also to funding from external sources (eg Kfw Bank –German Development Bank – and the national Treasury),” he wrote. “The unprocedural (illegal) appointment of the board in September 2014 does not assist the above-mentioned dilemma. “Please also be advised that the present illegal status of the board also brings into question all its resolutions and decisions over the past 18 months. “[They] could be questioned in terms of its legal standing by various affected parties and leave the MBDA open for litigation from affected service providers.” The board and city leadership have been at loggerheads about extending Voges’s contract. The board wanted the post to be advertised, while Ndoni has insisted there must be stability in the run-up to the elections. Before the MBDA’s announcement yesterday, Ndoni again insisted there was no problem. “I think this thing is under control. We have a scheduled meeting for Monday to resolve this [contract] thing,” Ndoni said.