‘You work for me’: Mayor allegedly urged council boss to sack ‘useless’ workers

Liverpool Mayor Ned Mannoun repeatedly told the council’s former chief executive John Ajaka “you work for me” and demanded he sack employees as tensions spiralled in the months before Ajaka was abruptly axed from the organisation’s top job, an inquiry has heard.

The NSW Office of Local Government’s public inquiry into Liverpool City Council is scrutinising councillors’ conduct, as well as the council’s handling of its finances, property purchases, staff employment, and more than $150 million in state government grants for infrastructure projects.

Former Liverpool Council chief executive John Ajaka arrives at the inquiry into alleged dysfunction and maladministration at the council on Wednesday.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Local Government Minister Ron Hoenig announced the inquiry last July after a scathing interim report detailed serious allegations of dysfunction and maladministration at the organisation.

Weeks earlier, councillors ousted Ajaka, a former NSW Liberal minister and the council’s 10th permanent or acting chief executive in eight years, following a dramatic falling out with Mannoun.

Ajaka, a former Rockdale councillor, told the inquiry on Wednesday he and Mannoun had known each other through Liberal Party and council circles for years when Mannoun encouraged him to apply for the chief executive role at the south-west Sydney council in December 2022.

“[Mannoun] had huge issues at Liverpool and felt I was the person who could fix those issues,” Ajaka said.

“There were some serious problems with staff, unions, quite a few matters being reported to the OLG. And they were building a new building, and he was really concerned about that.”

Ajaka said he had considered Mannoun a friend when he started work at the council, but the pair increasingly disagreed and their professional relationship began to deteriorate by September 2023.

“He made comments like, ‘Don’t forget, you work for me’. And I’d [say], ‘I don’t work for you, I work for the council’.

“He’d say, no, no, you work for me. You have to follow my instructions,” Ajaka said.

Chief executive John Ajaka (right) was dismissed after a bitter falling out with Mayor Ned Mannoun (left).Credit: Dion Georgopolous, Geoff Jones

Ajaka said he would remind Mannoun, who was first elected to council in 2012, that he needed to move a motion that was approved by most councillors for the chief executive to act on a matter.

“He’d then laugh it off and walk away. But he did it at least a dozen times in that early period.”

Ajaka told the inquiry Mannoun would “name certain employees that he considered should be terminated”.

He said Mannoun would, for example, complain to Ajaka about the workers who cut the grass or cleaned the bathrooms as “useless” and tell Ajaka the council should replace them with contractors.

“I would say, ‘No, that’s not going to happen. It’s not how we work. If you’ve got a formal complaint, you put in a complaint, we’ll investigate it.’ And he’d go, ‘No, I just want you to get rid of them.’

“As soon as I’d come back with an appropriate answer, he’d just leave it alone. There’d never be a comeback.”

Ajaka said Labor and independent councillors had complained to him they were being left out, or cut out, of photographs taken at events that were published on the council’s social media accounts, which they said mostly featured images of Mannoun and Liberal councillors.

When he raised the matter with communications staff, Ajaka said they told him “they were the instructions of the mayor”.

“I made it clear to [Mannoun] that they follow my instructions, not the instructions of the mayor, and that was to stop. The mayor and I had some arguments over that.”

The inquiry previously heard allegations Ajaka had encouraged a senior council bureaucrat to use “creative accounting” to drive down a $25 million deficit in the council’s draft 2024-25 budget.

Ajaka on Wednesday denied he used the phrase “creative accounting”.

“Absolutely not, it’s not a term I would use,” Ajaka said.

Tensions between the pair came to a head after a meeting about the budget and staffing last April, when Mannoun allegedly demanded Ajaka sack two council directors, including former Liberal MP Shayne Mallard, who was then-director of city futures.

Ajaka said to Mannoun: “I don’t understand how you would even do that to Shayne. He just said, ‘That’s OK, you just give him $200,000, and he’ll go’.

“I said, you can’t be serious. How would you possibly explain to the Office of Local Government handing him $200,000? … It’s improper.”

Ajaka eventually told Mannoun: “For the love of God, shut the f--- up, enough.”

He said the “energy in the room” had not shifted, and the meeting continued for 20 minutes.

The inquiry heard Mannoun later sent Ajaka an email saying he did “not feel safe at my place of work … purely because of the manner in which you spoke to me at the meeting”.

Ajaka said he was “stunned” by the email, and responded with an email describing the mayor’s allegations as “extraordinary”.

The inquiry is being heard over five weeks. Mannoun is yet to give evidence.

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