20 May 2026
Cobus Bester takes notes at the nearly empty Dassieshoek Dam outside Robertson. Bester has been involved in a three-year battle to get the Langeberg Municipality to release a report into water supply crises in 2021 and 2022, and is also challenging its ten-year accounting systems contract. Photo: Steve Kretzmann
A former councillor and a local auditor believe the Langeberg Municipality has violated the Municipal Finance Management Act by not fully disclosing details surrounding a multi-million rand ten-year accounting systems contract.
Former FF+ councillor Theuns Coetzee and resident Cobus Bester have both submitted requests under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) for the full contract with Gauteng-based firm CCG Systems worth R59.7-million, along with all annexures and related information.
Coetzee and Bester are also seeking the municipal notices and invitations to the public to comment on the contract, as would be required by the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), as well as proof of publication on the municipal website. Currently, a search for CCG on the site reveals no results.
Bester’s PAIA request of 6 December was ignored, and after the stipulated 30 days given for response, he filed an internal appeal, which resulted in him receiving the service level agreement signed 13 June 2023. Also supplied were two annexures, CCG’s contact details and the project milestones.
The rest of the information requested, along with information showing the municipality complied with the provisions of the MFMA, were not supplied. Bester filed a complaint with the Information Regulator on 20 April this year.
Coetzee’s PAIA request of 17 November 2025 resulted in him receiving the same service level agreement and two annexures which Bester later received. Coetzee then filed an internal appeal for the rest of the information requested, which has not been provided.
In his subsequent complaint to the Information Regulator submitted on 9 May this year, Coetzee said the information provided was incomplete. “It excluded the critical addenda to the contract that define contractual performance standards and the basis for identifying contractual breach.”
All internal PAIA appeals are supposed to be heard by the appeals authority, which is the full municipal council, within ten days. Coetzee says this never happened. Since he submitted his appeal on 12 February, it should have been tabled at the council meeting of 25 February, nine working days later. His appeal was never placed on the agenda.
The withholding of contractual information was among a number of reasons Coetzee resigned his post as councillor on 4 March 2026.
GroundUp’s questions to the municipality on the reasons they believe the contract is not subject to the MFMA’s requirements under Section 33 of the Act, received no response.
In December last year the municipality received a directive from the Information Regulator to release an independent report into the causes of a water supply crisis four years ago.
The directive came after a three-year battle by Bester to obtain the report through a PAIA request initially filed in December 2022, after taps had run dry in January of that year, followed by further water supply challenges in November 2022.
The municipality conducted an investigation into the reasons for the water supply crisis of January 2022, and also compiled a report on water supply challenges experienced in November that year.
Bester believes the investigation into the January 2022 crisis reveals the municipality’s lack of maintenance and management, and was not due to water shortages. GroundUp has reported on a lack of long-term planning by the municipality leading to repeated water restrictions during summer months.
Keeping the report secret “protects the wrong people”, Bester argues, and the municipality owed the public full disclosure on matters affecting their constitutional right to access clean water.
Bester also had to resubmit his original PAIA request because the municipal information officer – a role assumed by the municipal manager – initially provided the wrong submission form.
After exhausting the internal appeals process – twice – the Information Regulator responded to his complaint and facilitated a meeting between Bester and municipal officials in April last year.
This resulted in the municipality providing their report on the November 2022 water supply challenges. This was despite municipal manager Daniël Lubbe having previously stated, in response to the PAIA request, that it did not exist.
The three-page report on the November 2022 water supply challenges stated the reasons for low reservoir levels and suspension of the supply of irrigation water to Robertson and other towns in the municipality was due to the impact of “aggressive loadshedding”.
It would appear from the report that only Bonnievale – one of five towns in the municipality – had a backup generator at the water treatment works to pump water to reservoirs during loadshedding.
But Bester said he was never given the annexes to the report which contained the usage patterns and data informing the municipality’s decision. As a result, he registered a case with the police which was referred for prosecution two years ago and remains under investigation.
Although the requested information on the November 2022 water challenges was partially provided, the report on the more serious January 2022 crisis remained withheld. The reasons previously given were that the independent report contained opinions on municipal officials which was deemed “personal information”, and that disclosing the report would breach the confidence of officials who provided information to the report’s authors. Additionally, disciplinary proceedings emanating from information in the report had not been finalised.
These reasons were eventually deemed insufficient by the Information Regulator who, on 15 December, gave the municipality 30 days to provide the report to Bester.
In a letter to the Information Regulator dated 18 December acknowledging receipt of the directive, Lubbe stated the municipality was “aggrieved” by the Information Regulator’s decision, and intended to “apply to the Court for an order setting aside the decision”.
The 180-day period ends on 13 June.
