Stellenbosch race saga: Municipal Manager and former Dir. Corp Services implicated

Since the release of the clips from the 2023 meeting with Stellenbosch municipality HR manager Alexander Kannemeyer last week, it has come to light that Municipal Manager Geraldine Metler and former Corporate Services director Annaleen de Beer were both aware of the strategy of race-based constructive dismissal revealed by Kannemeyer’s comments.

To see the details of this story, you may read our previous article.

Since then, the DA has held a vote on disciplinary action, supported unanimously by DA and GOOD councillors, with the VF+ councillor absent for personal reasons, and the ANC opposing. DA spokesman Willie Aucamp has condemned the speech and actions of Kannemeyer, and the party is by all accounts serious about coming down hard on this scandal.

Solidariteit

Solidariteit has begun an investigation themselves, and have submitted further public disclosures to provincial DA leaders. According to the public statement by Dirk Herman, they found that:

“It is noteworthy that it was a coloured male panel member who found Kannemeyer’s remarks so offensive and derogatory that he blew the whistle. Fearing that the MS Teams recording might disappear, he requested the recording shortly after the meeting. The recording he received was due to expire in just seven days, while the normal expiry period is 180 days. He was also unable to download the recording, and since his requests for a downloadable version fell on deaf ears, he had no choice but to make a recording of the Teams recording himself on his cell phone. It is also a good thing that he did this, as it later became clear in litigation that the original recording was completely missing and/or destroyed and that the Stellenbosch Municipality no longer has the recording.

[…] As recently as April 2025, the Municipal Manager and Kannemeyer brought disciplinary charges against the panel member for his protected disclosure of 2023. Solidarity filed an urgent court application and the Labour Court ruled that the matter had to be heard by the SALGBC in terms of section 188A(11), after which the SALGBC Commissioner ruled in favour of the panel member on 24 June 2025. The Municipal Manager and Kannemeyer also instituted unfounded disciplinary action against the other Senior Manager, which Solidarity also successfully averted with an award and compensation in his favour on 25 June 2025.” 

At least two white managers were pushed out in this scheme, which has continued into the present, despite Mayor Fasser’s contention in the municipality’s official statement that this misconduct preceded his time in office. According to their legal representative from Solidariteit, Etienne Pio, both white technical managers filed formal grievances in mid 2023, around the time of the Microsoft Teams meeting which has since been leaked. Then-director of Corporate Services Annaleen de Beer (who has since been removed due to an illegal appointment process) allegedly refused to deal with these grievances.

Editor’s note: it has been brought to my attention that the Public Protector’s position regarding Annalene de Beer’s appointment was set aside by the courts. She was in fact let go because of misconduct including “harassment, intimidation and victimisation” and alleged irregularities related to the rental renewal of a cellular tower at Mountain Breeze Caravan Park, bonus payments, and allegedly misleading information about a riding club. The disciplinary action was initiated by Mettler and Kannemeyer, the latter of which later took on her responsibilities.

One of the aggrieved employees escalated this to a formal disciplinary complaint, requesting Municipal Manager Geraldine Metler investigate and pursue disciplinary action.

In her hastily written public statement on behalf of the municipality last week, which was since deleted (and can be read here), “It should also be noted that this matter was subject to a full internal investigation as well as proceedings at the CCMA. No findings were made.” However, no evidence of this process is available.

Additionally, three separate formal protected disclosures were subsequently made by three aggrieved parties to Metler.

Furthermore, in the process of one of the former municipal employees pursuing legal recourse at the end of last year, there was a disclosure in litigation of the full recorded video of which short excerpts were leaked by this website last week. The municipality initially claimed that no recording of the meeting existed, despite clips of the meeting circulating among staff over the past several years.

What this all suggests, is that the policy of absolute exclusion of white candidates, and the strategy of constructive dismissal to obtain these ends, was widely known about, and no action was taken. The precise degree of complicity, whether in negligence or intentional collaboration, remains to be firmly established, but either way, it is not acceptable.

Public pressure

The DA should be applauded for their swift response to the scandal – the party has fully got behind the disciplinary action against Kannemeyer, and are proceeding to investigate Geraldine Metler as well. This has become fairly widely known among people within and adjacent to the municipality.

But the public should exercise caution in their optimism. In several previous cases, including the cases against Memory Booysen, Eleanor Bouw-Spies, Conrad Poole and Albert de Klerk, these members of local DA government were allowed to resign just before disciplinary hearings into corruption could be held, and were not referred to legal authorities despite the knowledge of executive members of the party of their transgressions. de Klerk was bounced from Midvaal to Laingsburg after a cash-for-jobs scandal, and then to Hessequa after local community objections. The other three, being elected officials, were simply promoted to provincial and national parliament after their respective scandals.

If justice is to be sought against a member of a DA government, adequate pressure must be placed throughout the entire disciplinary process, which in this case will last up to six weeks for Kannemeyer, and longer for Metler.

From all sources close to the municipal administration, it appears to be a consensus that the Mayor was unqualified to run the municipality. Despite several alternative candidates with better credentials being available, including other members of the mayoral committee, such as Deputy Mayor Maynard Slabbert who possesses a law degree, Jeremy Fasser was selected as a pliable figurehead to curry favour with the local Coloured electorate despite being well in over his head. His sole previous employment, even according to his own LinkedIn profiile, was as a driving instructor.

Whether or not Fasser was aware of the shenanigans going on under his nose, it was certainly widely known enough that he should have been aware of it. However, as councillors will attest, the DA has no meaningful political oversight over Stellenbosch. The management has prevented them from having any access to staff, and will shadow any elected representative who enters the municipal offices. Management delay access to key policy documents and information as long as legally possible before council votes, preventing scrutiny in council.

While Stellenbosch continues to be better-run than municipalities in areas outside of the Cape, it is clear that there is great room for improvement, and whatever the merits of Stellenbosch as compared with elsewhere in the country, it is not a result of the DA’s policies, as all evidence points to them having no meaningful role in the day-to-day running of important matters.

The effects of this lack of oversight will be examined in forthcoming articles.