Ehrenreich, the head of Cosatu in Western Cape and an ANC city councillor, hauled the city before the Equality Court last year.

In court papers, he claimed the city had spent millions of rands "to promote tourism jobs" through its Design Capital and Table Mountain projects, instead of promoting the creation of manufacturing jobs and the purchase of local products.

"This is unequal treatment. The lack of purchasing of South African-made products led to the closure of companies. So manufacturing-sector workers are unfairly discriminated aga-inst," Ehrenreich said.

He wanted the court to force the city to support workers in manufacturing in the "same way [it supports] bosses in tourism".

Cape Town last year became the first African city to win the World Design Capital title.

Acting city manager Mike Marsden urged the court to dismiss the complaint, which it did last week.

"Accordingly, [Ehrenreich's] averment that the city discriminates by prioritising certain projects is simply lethargic speculation . Budget resource allocations, even if skewed, cannot form the basis for a complaint of discrimination as alleged," said Marsden.

The court struck the matter off the roll because "complaints of discrimination of budget and resource allocations by prioritising certain projects by local government does not fall within the jurisdiction of the Equality Court".

Solly Malatsi, spokesman for Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, said Ehrenreich's court application was a "desperate political gimmick".

"We hope that this will be a lesson to . Ehrenreich to stop wasting state institutions' time to pursue his misguided political agenda," said Malatsi.

Yesterday, Ehrenreich said he had not yet had time to deal with the matter as he had not yet returned to work.