The High court has ruled in favour of UThukela District Municipality to have its accounts unfrozen. In the picture is UThukela mayor inkosi Ntandoyesizwe Shabalala.
Image: Suppplied
The Pietermaritzburg High Court has ordered the urgent return of R82 million, extracted from the UThukela District Municipality's bank accounts by a service provider, within 48 hours.
This order, issued on Monday, follows an urgent application by the municipality after the attachment of its bank accounts by RASP Consultants CC, an action that threatened to collapse the municipality's operations.
The urgent application sought an interim order (Part A) to declare the writ of execution invalid and set it aside, or to suspend the writ.
During court proceedings, advocate Griffiths Madonsela SC asked the court to suspend and uplift all attachments and garnishees executed by Ladysmith Sheriff Rantesh Rajkumar.
Madonsela further asked that the Sheriff and RASP be interdicted from obtaining any writ of execution, stating: “Pending the finalisation of a subsequent application (Part B), the first and second respondents to be restrained and interdicted from initiating or issuing any new writ of execution.”
While the court granted all the unopposed orders sought in the urgent application, it notably did not declare the writ of execution invalid.
The dispute stems from a water plant maintenance service tender RASP held with UThukela between 2021 and 2022. Due to payment issues while the municipality was under administration, RASP took the municipality to court. UThukela acknowledged a debt exceeding R100m and agreed to a payment plan of 24 installments until mid-2033, as a lump sum payment was impossible. This agreement was formalised in writing.
However, the municipality failed to make the first R3m instalment on December 15 2025. After requesting a grace period, the payment was eventually made on January 13 2026. Shortly thereafter, on January 20, RASP's project manager, Roshan Sewpersad, obtained a writ of execution from the High Court registrar and subsequently attached the municipality's bank accounts, extracting a staggering R82m.
UThukela city manager, Langelihle Jili, stated that after losing control of the accounts, they attempted to negotiate with Sewpersad, who reportedly made demands, including a meeting with the MEC for Cogta, Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi. These negotiations ultimately failed.
The municipality's subsequent application (Part B) will proceed at a later stage. In this part, UThukela wants the court to consider its critical constitutional and statutory obligations and satisfy itself whether its accounts should be subject to attachment, as the municipality argues against their attachability.
nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za