The Johannesburg high court has given the City of Ekurhuleni the green light to proceed with disciplinary hearings against its suspended chief information officer, Moloko Monyepao, linked to a R2bn revenue shortfall in the municipality’s billing system.
This comes after the court dismissed his urgent application seeking to interdict the disciplinary process pending a review of the process that gave rise to it. The court’s decision gives the go-ahead for the hearings to start today.
Ekurhuleni claims that, as a result of Monyepao’s failure to properly oversee the billing system, about 1,600 accounts of households and businesses were tampered with from July 2023, resulting in losses estimated at R2bn. The holders of the accounts that were tampered with were required to repay the city for the amounts they were undercharged.
Manyepao has denied the allegations against him.
Judge Leonie Windell said the urgency claimed by Monyepao was self-created, noting that his review application was only launched in January 2026 — nearly five months after he became aware of the disciplinary proceedings against him.
“The chronology, the unexplained delay, and the applicant’s own conduct in repeatedly postponing or interrupting the disciplinary process all point to self-created urgency,” she said.
[Moloko Monyepao’s] own conduct in repeatedly postponing or interrupting the disciplinary process all point to self-created urgency.
— Judge Leonie Windell
“Against that background, the applicant further contends that he will not obtain substantial redress in due course. This submission rests on a single premise, namely that he will incur legal costs in participating in the disciplinary enquiry, which he says was initiated before the completion of a full report.”
Windell subsequently dismissed the application and ordered Monyepao to pay the costs incurred by the respondent, the City of Ekurhuleni.
Windell said Monyepao’s application was part of the steps he took to delay being disciplined.
“The delays in the progression of the disciplinary enquiry are, to a significant degree, attributable to the applicant himself — through illness-related postponement, successive urgent litigation in the labour court, interlocutory challenges within the enquiry, and the late institution of review proceedings,” she said.
Windell said the urgency relied upon by Monyepao did not arise from external circumstances or impending irreparable harm.
“It is the direct consequence of the applicant’s own litigation choices and delaying conduct. The inference that the present urgent application constitutes a further attempt to disrupt, derail, or postpone the disciplinary proceedings is difficult to avoid.”
The court ruling marks the third legal setback suffered by Monyepao in his attempts to delay the disciplinary process.
On April 23 last year, he launched an urgent application in the labour court seeking to have his suspension declared unlawful, but the matter was dismissed in May.
The city then proceeded with disciplinary hearings, which were disrupted by his illness in June, leading to a postponement to August.
A day after proceedings resumed, Monyepao challenged the authority of both the evidence leader and the chairperson through an in limine application, which was ultimately dismissed. However, the matter was postponed again to February 2026.
In January 2026, he launched the review application that triggered the latest attempt to halt the disciplinary hearings.
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