Estate Agency Affairs Board  reveals reasons for CEO Mapetla’s dismissal

After a midnight rescue mission to save a trapped leopard, police had to be called in when a Bredasdorp farmer allegedly refused to free the cat caught in a cage on his land.
The farmer, currently under investigation by Cape Nature, eventually decided to hand over the leopard which was found still trapped and dehydrated last week.
On Thursday Kas Hamman, head of Cape Nature’s biodiversity section, said members were informed about the cat, a female of about nine, caught in a live trap cage positioned by Cape Nature. It was not hurt.
Hamman said he received a request from a SAN Parks official to have the leopard transported to the Ado National Park in the Eastern Cape.
He refused the request.
“It's our policy that a leopard can't be moved more than a 100km radius from it's natural territory. This has genetic implications and we want to protect their genetic integrity,” Hamman said.
He said staff members, along with Bool Smuts, an Eastern Cape vet and director of the Landmark Foundation, had then gone to the farm to obtain the leopard so they could release it nearby.
“This involved GPS collars, researchers, and a veterinarian rushing across the landscape in the middle of the night to effect this rescue.”
Smuts said the farmer had demanded that the team leave his property as they were trespassing.
The team then left the farm to return with police at am.
“When we arrived again, the cat and the cage had been removed from its veld position to an undisclosed concealed area,” Smuts said.
He said the farmer refused to show them where the leopard was located and police then threatened to arrest him.
Smuts then intervened and the farmer, in exchange for R7500, led them to the caged leopard which was locked in a shack. Hamman said the farmer's actions were being investigated. He said the leopard was found in a “appalling state”.
“It was dehydrated. We put it on a drip for the whole morning.”
The leopard, fitted with a collar so its movements could be tracked, was later freed in the De Hoop Nature Reserve.
The Farmer could not be reached for comment.

JOHANNESBURG – After a deafening silence the Estate Agency Affairs Board (EAAB) has revealed that it suspended and subsequently dismissed its former CEO Nomonde Mapetla for her deceitful conduct.
Outlining the events leading up to Mapetla’s suspension and subsequent dismissal Thami Bolani, the board’s chairman, in his responding affidavit to the ex-CEO’s court challenge over her firing said “shortly after my appointment as the chairman of the board in early December 2010 I arranged a conference with the applicant [Mapetla]. I had been told by other longer-serving members of the board that the applicant has a reputation for being manipulative with board members and is regarded as being difficult to deal with”.
Based on this and the fact that the previous board had taken the decision not to renew Mapetla’s contract, Bolani met with Mapetla. According to his affidavit, he asked Mapetla “what it would take to ensure that all of the parties would work in unison rather than against each other?  
“The applicant [Mapetla] responded by saying that I should extend her fixed-term contract of employment, which was ending on July 15 2011, for a further two years. I obviously found the suggestion most unseemly. I politely informed the applicant that I could not and would not do so. I emphasised that the decision to renew or not renew her contract required careful consideration by the members of the board of the first respondent [EAAB] as a whole and that even if I wanted to renew her contract I could [not] do so without there being a valid ruling by the board”.   
This type of conduct according to Bolani, was not new, “… shortly before the applicant’s contract was due to expire [in 2008] the board, as it was then constituted debated whether or not her contract should be renewed. There was considerable debate about the applicant’s performance which was considered by a number of board members to have been sub-standard”, an opinion confirmed in board member Sindile Faku’s affidavit. Faku was also part of the preceding board which debated the renewal of her contract.
“Many board members were not in favour of renewing her contract. However, unbeknown to the board the then chairman [Dumisa Hlatshwayo] unilaterally renewed the applicant’s contract of employment for a further three years. This is the contract which the applicant relies upon in this application. As there was never any valid (or indeed any) board resolution adopted to renew the applicant’s contract, she does not have a valid contract of employment with the first respondent [EAAB] and as such has no standing to bring this application.
“I also pointed out to the applicant that during July 2010 the previous board had decided not to renew her fixed-term contract. This decision of the board was previously communicated to the applicant and she was well aware of it. I concluded by saying …. [that] I would raise the issue of any potential renewal of her fixed-term contract with the board’s human resources committee”.