Tshwane residents watching their municipality’s security spending climb into the hundreds of millions of rands now have a court case to follow. The Democratic Alliance has filed papers at the Gauteng High Court seeking to overturn a City of Tshwane Council decision that allowed Deputy Executive Mayor Eugene Modise to keep his position despite a finding of misconduct against him.
Modise, an ANC politician serving as MMC for Finance, was found by the City’s own forensic investigation to have failed to legally disclose financial interests connected to Triotic Protection Services, a company that has received millions of rands in municipal payments. The investigation concluded he had breached the Councillors’ Code of Conduct.
The Council’s response was a financial penalty. Nothing more.
The ANC-ActionSA-EFF coalition controlling the Council voted against any serious consequence, a decision the DA now argues is both inadequate and unlawful. The party’s court application asks the High Court to set aside that decision and return the matter for reconsideration under what the DA describes as the correct legal framework, one that would force Modise to face genuine legal consequences.
The timing sharpens the concern. Throughout Modise’s tenure overseeing municipal finances, spending on security watchman services has continued escalating into the hundreds of millions of rands. According to the DA, Modise’s financial interests in Triotic Protection Services remained hidden from the public during this entire period.
By contrast, the DA’s argument is not complicated: a politician responsible for a municipality’s finances cannot ethically hold undisclosed financial ties to companies doing business with that same municipality. The DA characterizes the Council’s decision to look past this as irrational and fundamentally damaging to the integrity of local government. When a breach of the Councillors’ Code of Conduct draws only a token penalty, the DA argues, it signals that the Code is optional rather than binding, and that signal corrodes public trust.
The DA has also turned its criticism toward ActionSA directly. The party states that ActionSA’s vote to protect Modise exposes it as a party that condones rule-breaking, shielding the kind of conduct Tshwane residents have long associated with ANC governance.
For ordinary Tshwane residents, the stakes are concrete. The person overseeing how their rates and municipal funds are spent had undisclosed financial links to a company receiving City contracts, and the elected body responsible for holding him accountable chose not to act. The DA’s court application is, at its core, an attempt to use the judiciary to enforce the accountability standard the Council majority declined to apply itself.
The DA has committed to providing updates as the case progresses. Whether the High Court agrees that a financial slap on the wrist was legally insufficient will determine whether Modise’s position remains secure, or whether the matter returns for the reckoning the DA says it always warranted.